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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



THE 



Religious Conflict or the Ages 



AND OTHER ADDRESSES, 



BY 



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THE GUIDES OF MRS. R. SHEPARD L1LLIE. 





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BOSTON: 

COLBY & RICH, PUBLISHERS 

9 Bosworth Street. 

1889. 







Copyright, 1889, 
By Mrs. R. S. Lillie. 



Typography by J. S. Cusiiing & Co., Boston. 



I'KKsswoiiK t.y Berwick & Smith, Boston. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

The Religious Conflict of the Ages , 5 

Charity 19 

In Re Dr. Talmage 33 

Signs of Progress ; in Fact, in Fiction 42 

Woman 55 

Reminiscences of a Spirit 71 

Reunion at Gettysburg 85 

Our Place among the Religions of the World . . 90 

Modern Spiritualism: Its Plan and Purpose . . . 103 

The Realities of the Spirit-World 112 

Anniversary Address 124 

Answers to Questions 136 



THE 

RELIGIOUS CONFLICT OF THE AGES. 

INVOCATION. 

From the fountain of light, angels of power, 
Feed us, instruct us, and bless us this hour! 
Lead our thoughts upward, we earnestly pray, 
Give light, strength, and courage for our future way ! 

Unto those who may send forth inquiring thoughts this morning, 
may there come from thy bounty, from thy stores of wisdom, those 
words of encouragement, which, falling even from weak human 
lips, may yet bear with them strength and power. May they find 
in them encouragement to press onward in the struggle of life ! 

To-day, as ever, thou givest to us an answer to our petitions. 
As ever, the clouds are parted, and we behold the ether blue. Be- 
yond, as ever, the Star of Hope gleams out through the rifts in the 
clouds. As ever, there is extended to us the helping hand. Oh, 
may our lives prove worthy of the teachings given us ! May there 
shine forth in them, the religion of living and doing, in this, the 
pathway of time. Unto us is given the ministry of angels. Unto 
us may there be given power to live according to these ministra- 
tions, so that our lives and our acts may be in harmony with them. 
Enable us, by thy illuminating power, to enter the secret chambers 
of the soul, and if there are idols there, aid us to bear them out into 
the light of day ; that its rays falling upon them, may show us their 
enormity, and enable us to leave them behind us. May the light 
enter into the waste places of our thoughts, and illuminating the 
same, make us wiser. Give us that strength which shall make us 
better able to endure the burdens of life, and stronger to labor for 
others. By thy loving and untiring ministrations, O Angels of 
Wisdom and Power, may we be made more powerful for good, for 



6 THE RELIGIOUS CONFLICT OF THE AGES. 

well doing, and righteous living. And unto the Living and Loving 
who watch us and guard us to-day, who are now, as ever, extending 
the helping hand,— unto these our glad thanksgivings, and songs of 
praise, forever and forever more. 



LECTURE. 

There ever have been, are now, and will continue to 
be for long ages yet to come, the unsettled problems, — 
questions which will continue to arise, — on which men 
ever differ, because of their inability to grasp or com- 
prehend but in part. All religious systems of the past 
and present are the result of man's effort in this direc- 
tion. Not yet has man been able to settle the question 
of the Godhead, or of who and what God is. None yet 
have given an idea of, or such evidence as could be 
accepted by all as proof of positive knowledge. There 
are many systems, many theories, numberless specula- 
tions in regard to God, and man's relations and obliga- 
tions to him, what is required, and what is not required. 
Those who think they know endeavor to compel others 
to accept their thought, follow their form, and thus the 
conflict continues. Man to-day is thinking a great deal 
more than ever before, and the result of his thought is 
agitation. Agitation creates conflict. This conflict that 
is going on to-day has been going on in religion for 
a long time. Necessarily, it increases, as man evolves 
into a higher state of being, where his reason is called 
into play. We find him to-day a reasoner, compared 
with what he was in the ages of the past. As a relig- 
ious being, he has accepted the ideas, teachings, and 
doctrines of his forefathers, from generation to genera- 
tion, save as an occasional man has risen from the mass 



THE RELIGIOUS CONFLICT OF THE AGES. 7 

of mankind, whose soul, dissatisfied with all this, refused 
to be fettered by it. These strong, brave souls, full of 
yearnings and strivings for something higher and better, 
have appeared at intervals all through the ages; the 
aspirations of their souls have expressed themselves in 
their lives, and these lives have left their impress upon 
the thought of the world. But the mass of mankind, 
the untold millions of human beings, who have covered 
this earth, passed through its experiences, and departed 
from this mortal stage of existence, have left no record 
behind them. They have been content to take what 
was given them without thought or question. Whether 
the water of life, or no, it mattered not. So it has been 
with untold millions. 

The exceptional man who has appeared at intervals, 
always differing from those around him, always stand- 
ing out boldly from them, has invariably been the radi- 
cal of his time. He has always startled and shocked 
the community. He has been considered insane ; he 
has been tabooed by all who lived in his time and age. 
He is too radical for his period. He will not submit to 
error and injustice. He stands out in opposition to the 
preaching and the customs of his time. Looking at 
these, and the mass of mankind who accept them, he 
denounces error and evil, and speaks violently to those 
who continue to submit to their reign. Such men are 
always hated and despised in their time. 

Though Jesus may be worshipped in the distance of 
the nineteen hundred years that have elapsed since his 
time, though slowly, through all the ages, this worship 
has been increasing, in his own day he was the hated 
and despised radical of his age. He dared to openly 



8 THE EELIGIOUS CONFLICT OF THE AGES. 

defy the Jews, condemning their customs, their relig- 
ion, even entering the temple itself, and condemning 
their usages and forms, showing no respect even to the 
high priesthood. Everywhere he spoke openly in de- 
fence of right and justice and truth as he beheld them. 
All his teachings were a great deal in advance of what 
had preceded them, and he was hated accordingly. In 
this spirit of hatred, they persecuted him, they put him 
to death. They did it in the name of God ; they did 
it in the name of religion ; they did it as worshippers 
of the Most High. Washing their hands, they made 
prayers to God, and brought offerings unto him. To 
pacify their God, they must put to death this blas- 
phemer, as they termed him, — this man who was in 
league with devils. 

This, throughout all ages, has been the experience of 
the radical, the man who has dared to stand up in oppo- 
sition to prevailing customs and usages. To-day the 
Christian worships the character of the old-time radical 
whom the Jews hated, worshipping him as the second 
person in the trinity of the Godhead. What this trinity 
of the Godhead may mean, no theologian has ever been 
able to rationally explain. No one can understand it. 
No one pretends to understand it. There is not a 
theologian living who can give a sensible, reasonable 
idea as to what is the meaning of the " Trinity," or as 
to what and whom God is, in what shape or form is his 
personality, or what is the meaning thereof. No one 
can give a rational or clear description of it. Man says, 
" It is God the Father." But who and what and where 
is the Father ? May we behold him ? No answer 
cometh to us. It is one of " the mysteries of godliness," 



THE RELIGIOUS CONFLICT OF THE AGES. 9 

always has been, is now, and ever must be. No one 
can solve this riddle of riddles. 

The second person in the Trinity they claim to know 
a little more of. History tells of the man of Judea, 
and the Christian and the Christian's Bible of his 
miraculous, strangely mysterious parentage, almost 
unknown, one-half thereof shaded in the "mystery of 
Godliness " that no one can understand. This life 
must find expression in order to bring harmonious con- 
ditions into the bosom of an angry God, — a God so 
angry with all created beings, that his rage could not 
be appeased until one sufficiently high, one who was 
" very God and very man," had in the form of humanity 
been sacrificed upon the altar of his vengeance. This 
is the history as given to us. God was then partially 
satisfied — so far satisfied that whosoever belie veth in 
this sacrifice shall be saved. But woe unto the one so 
organized that he cannot believe ! That man so organ- 
ized by nature that he must be the radical of his time 
and period, woe unto him ! according to the doctrines 
of the church of the day. 

We ask next who is the third person in the Trinity ? 
Who can tell us anything about it ? Who is this that 
has been spoken of as " God the Holy Ghost " ? I ask 
and wait for a response. I listen adown the ages. If 
they try to give me an answer, it is a disturbed, con- 
fused answer that leaves me in the greatest doubt and 
uncertainty. I know nothing about it. I find no one 
who does. Well has it been described as the wind, and 
no one can tell " whence it cometh, whither goeth," or 
what it is. It is simply the "third person in the 
Trinity." These three persons make one person — the 



10 THE KELIGIOUS CONFLICT OF THE AGES. 

Godhead. Nobody can tell me what this personality is. 
We cannot get the idea of a personal God any farther 
than our own personality will give expression thereto. 
A personal God must be a God in the form of man, 
with hands, head, body. We look upon our little 
selves, and imagine a great big self, and call it God. 
It is infinitely larger than we, but such a one must 
necessarily be limited. If we describe him as sitting 
upon a great white throne in the heavens, and having 
the earth for his foot-stool, still he will have limitations. 
The throne or heaven is his home ; the earth is his 
occasional abiding place — the place to which he pays 
an occasional visit ! And the earth is the abode of sin 
and misery. Everywhere men are wandering over its 
surface, doing evil, following after evil continually, 
persistently falling into it easily and naturally. If, 
perchance, he does a good act, it is very much against 
his human nature. 

This is the being as God made him, according to 
tradition, and we cannot help wondering why God did 
not do a better job while he was about it. We look 
out at poor humanity, suffering and struggling, battling 
with the tide that is all around. Then there is this 
thought : u We are as God made us." Somebody says, 
" No, we are as sin, the violation of law, has made us." 
But we must go back of this, and recognize the fact 
that God made man with these sinful possibilities em- 
bodied within him. He made our good mother Eve so 
frail that she fell before the first temptation. He has 
put all this human weakness within her which made it 
impossible for her to resist even the first temptation. 



THE RELIGIOUS CONFLICT OF THE AGES. 11 

We are what is called "sinful" because we were so 
constructed. 

Now, then, what is this personality ? Who has done 
this ? Men have long been turning over the rubbish of 
past ages, trying to find out. They haven't done it yet. 
We were told in our childhood that the earth was a 
little less than six thousand years old. Man had been 
upon the earth only this short period of time. Many 
of you, gray-haired men and women, have sat down as 
innocently as ever your parents did, and told your chil- 
dren this. You have said : " God made you, my child. 
He made the heavens, the blue heavens, and the stars. 
He made everything, in love and holiness." And then 
it did not take a child of six years to confound you 
with questions about the sin and wrong and injustice 
he could see all about him. You had told the child 
God was all wisdom, all love, and then with the same 
breath had said, " Don't do this, my darling ; if you do, 
God will be angry with you, and you cannot go to 
heaven." Thus the child would have its head and 
heart burdened with these mysteries even in its earliest 
years. 

Such are the experiences of children even to-day. 
Go out upon your streets this morning. You will see 
the Catholic hugging his prayer-book as fervently as 
ever before, and the Protestant that looks down upon 
the Catholic and smiles at his superstition, smiles with 
the egotism of pride, and then, with up-turned eyes, 
thanks God for the revelations that have come to him 
through the greater light of Protestantism. This is 
the child looking in the face of its mother, the old 
parent church, and thanking God it has broken away 



12 THE IlELIGIOUS CONFLICT OF THE AGES. 

from her apron strings. All believers in Protestant 
Christianity are truant children from the Catholic 
Church. They have shaken off her robes of priesthood, 
some of them, and stand as men behind the altar admin- 
istering the sacrament to other men. They will tell 
you that all the outer paraphernalia of the church of 
Rome belongs to the past. There are others who still 
wrap themselves in the gown and surplice, glorying in 
this, but still making up faces at the old parent church. 
So, step by step, little by little, halting often, some- 
times appearing even to be going backward, man has 
slowly progressed toward light and freedom. Take the 
map of Christendom to-day; spread it out before you, 
and survey the picture for a single moment. See how 
Protestantism is growing. How it is growing in church 
building, in numbers, in power, in everything as far as 
externalism is concerned; and the old parent church, 
stronger than ever before, as far as externalism is con- 
cerned, until Protestantism, with all its developments, 
stands trembling for the future of the Republic, trem- 
bling for the rights of the people, trembling for their 
liberal institutions, knowing something of the spirit of 
Catholicism. And well they may ; for even now are 
they making a bold and determined approach, menac- 
ing, threatening, yea, boldly attacking, the free school 
system, making demands which no Protestant can 
accede to, and yet demands which the Protestant por- 
tion of the population have invited by their determi- 
nation to introduce their views, their Bible, and their 
form of religion into the public schools, — a place 
which, so long as the people of the land are of every 
form of religious belief, should be left unsectarian; 



THE UELIGIOUS CONFLICT OF THE AGES. 13 

teaching science, art, literature, together with the fun- 
damental branches, leaving religious doctrines to be 
taught in the home and by the church, whose work it 
is to do this, making it thus certain that parents of any 
religious belief should have the control and direction 
of the minds of their children as they would naturally 
desire. 

Protestantism has for a long time been determined 
to have religion taught in the public schools, and has 
succeeded in a measure. Now the Catholic says, if 
religion is to be taught in schools supported by public 
funds, then the Catholic religion must be taught ; if not, 
then we must have a portion of the funds for Catholic 
or parochial schools. This they have a right to ask, 
even to demand, if the same right is to be insisted upon 
by Protestants, or if they insist upon the reading of the 
Bible, prayer, and Protestant forms of religious teach- 
ings in the public schools. 

Our nation is composed of all classes of religionists, 
— Jews and Gentiles, Catholics and Protestants. Then 
look at the tree of Modern Liberalism. See how firmly 
it is rooted, how it is spreading its branches over the 
earth, taking hold upon the people, working like 
leaven in the entire mass. Are these to be overlooked 
entirely? Are these to be taxed for the support of 
schools into which must be introduced a form of teach- 
ing which the parents have long since left in the back- 
ground; which to them is in reality an empty shell, 
that once contained life, but which life has gone out? 

This is where the church is to-day. It is like a seed 
planted in the soil in springtime, whose life has gone 
out into new-forms. The shell that once held that life 



14 THE RELIGIOUS CONFLICT OF THE AGES. 

remains, but the life has been diffused, new forms have 
arisen ; these cannot be crowded back into the old form 
or shell. The people are wiser and better, most of 
them, than the church gives them credit for. 

We have said the church of to-day is a shell. The 
spirit, the power it once possessed has departed. We 
look at the temples of Christendom, arising in grandeur 
and magnificence all over the land. Their many spires 
pointing upward show that they are continually grow- 
ing in numbers, and one would say the power of this 
religion is increasing. 

If organization, numbers, and standing externals con- 
stitute power, then it is ; but if adherence to the prin- 
ciples embodied in the creeds and rigid obedience to 
them, led by blind faith as in the past, then it is not. 
The people subscribe in form, knowing that there are 
social advantages to be gained ; knowing also that the 
demands upon them now are not what they once were. 
What is demanded now of the church member com- 
pared with what was demanded of him in past ages? 
Then man must live somewhere down in a little narrow 
groove, thinking and believing only what was told him. 
To-day he does not pretend to do it. To be sure, some 
still contend for this narrowness of the old theology, 
assenting to it in word and letter, as in some of your 
public institutions; but while the few are doing this, 
the heart of the people goes out in broader fields, in 
clearer ways, and the world is gradually changing, 
gradually moving outward, and we can confidently say 
there is not a single old-time Christian to be found on 
the earth, — not one, who, two hundred years ago, would 
have been considered a sound, solid, orthodox Christian 



THE RELIGIOUS CONFLICT OF THE AGES. 15 

at that time, with their puritanic rules and regulations, 
their strict adherence to the letter of the law, their 
ideas of Sabbath laws and holy days, their belief as to 
what constituted sin. It is only necessary to refer to 
these for you to say with us that the man whom we 
call Christian to-day would scarcely have been tolerated 
in the church of the past. So that church of the past 
is as dead as the bodies of the men who made it, only 
remaining as a form. To that extent has Liberalism 
changed it. When you hear the clanking of the old 
chains of superstition, as at Andover to-day, you may 
know it is a sign of progress. Somebody is making a 
struggle for liberty. The old fogies may, for a time, 
hold the balance of power , but sooner or later they will 
have to move out, and broader men will fill their places. 
Even this controversy will let in the light. It cannot 
be for long that the majority will think that by their 
vote or decision nations gone and those unborn can be 
damned in a body, and even now they make themselves 
an object of ridicule for all intelligent people. This 
struggle of the human mind for freedom of thought 
and action, this " Conflict of the Ages," is as natural as 
the growth of the plant, as natural as life itself, as per- 
fect as the law of Evolution. This evolving of the 
lesser lower forms of life into something higher, nobler, 
grander, is going on as constantly in the world of mind 
as in the world of matter. 

And so Liberalism, in its highest, best sense, is con- 
stantly spreading, and must necessarily do so. It is the 
law of Evolution or growth. 

There are men and women to-day, who, standing 
upon the mountain's brow, and beholding the wrongs 



1C THE RELIGIOUS CONFLICT OF THE AGES. 

and evils of life, as we term them, express themselves 
energetically. These are they whom some of you fear 
even to-day. But while their strong blows must hurt 
in some directions, you must remember there must be 
some who will strike at the root of the tree. It seems 
harsh, it seems almost unnecessary, at first ; but every 
blow will do good until the tree of error is felled to 
the ground. While it is possible that nerves may be 
shocked, while it is possible that there are those to-day 
who may cringe a little while the sharp blows are ring- 
ing out, yet there is no soul in this universe who can 
or dare speak too bravely or too strongly for the truth 
itself. There are evils that cannot be touched with 
gloved hands. These evils must be disturbed before 
they can be eradicated, and some of them will send up 
strong odors when they are turned over, — and they are 
going to be turned over by somebody who is not afraid 
of the work. Spiritualism, as an ism, is doing a great 
deal of that work. " Blessed are ye, when men shall 
revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner 
of evil against you falsely, for my sake." And have we 
not had all manner of evil said of us for the sake of 
the truths which the returning spirits have seen fit to 
utter? for the wrongs existing in society under the 
guise of right, which they have dared attack, whether 
in pulpit, creed, or the practice of men ; whether those 
wrongs have been legalized by statutes, and thereby 
attained a degree of respectability, or otherwise, for the 
necessary agitation in the course of right, justice, and 
reform ? 

The searchers after truth have ever been treated 
with contumely and hatred. There is not a Spiritualist 



THE RELIGIOUS CONFLICT OF THE AGES. 17 

among you who has not been warned to abandon this 
new cause, this evil, as they call it. And just here we 
will say that, while we have been accused of much that 
is false, many of the charges brought against us have 
been true. It is necessarily so. They think it is evil, 
because they do not understand the truth, or what con- 
stitutes it. 

There is not a Spiritualist among you who is not 
now hated by some who once loved you, who would be 
glad to have almost anything happen to you to change 
your belief. Not being able to do that, they say you 
are lunatics, or possessed of devils. It has said this of 
the reformers in all ages, they who have dared to stand 
up in opposition to the prevailing customs of the times. 

Spiritualism goes to the very foundation of life, to 
its basic principles, and talks to them of generation 
instead of regeneration. It says to the human race, 
you will never be redeemed, until you are redeemed by 
proper generation. There is no regeneration for you. 
Until this lesson is learned, it will be given again and 
again. You must learn to live purely, that you may 
bring forth the pure ; to walk uprightly, that your chil- 
dren's feet may not forsake the path of rectitude. 

Drunkenness can never be eradicated until you have 
learned to bear your children so they will not be born 
drunkards.. If the seed of intemperance is implanted 
within them, it will just as surely bring forth its fruit 
as the thistle will produce its thorns; it cannot be 
otherwise. People hold prayer-meetings, and talk to 
God about it; they beseech him to come down and 
remedy this evil ; with what result, we see daily. To 
believe is naught; to do is a great deal. Until men 



18 THE KELIGIOUS CONFLICT OF THE AGES. 

learn to do righteously, they have no religion that is of 
any value whatever. To be of value, it must have a 
practical application to their lives. 

It is for such doctrines as these that Spiritualism has 
been assailed by those who value their idols of inherited 
beliefs more than they value the truth itself ; and these 
thoughts, as given through our modern philosophy, have 
caused much of the present conflict in religious circles. 
JError dies hard ; but Truth has mighty weapons, and 
when she marshals her hosts and arrays her facts, she 
deals through these sturdy blows. 

The conflict continues ; determined foes oppose prog- 
ress on every side. But gradually the right prevails, 
gradually the light dawns upon minds that have hith- 
erto sat in darkness ; and then they acknowledge their 
errors and speak boldly for truth. Yet the determined 
ones are making a desperate resistance by every means ; 
seeking covertly or openly to make chains by legislative 
enactments, and otherwise, that shall bind all to the 
chariot-wheels of the past ; compelling all to wear their 
yokes and drag their burden up life's steeps. But the 
intelligence we believe is too great, too strong, for it. 
That which resists the authority of popes, priests, and 
man-made, unjust laws, is reason. When it asserts 
itself, there is rebellion, there is conflict; and such 
will continue until the right comes uppermost, and 
justice is done. 



CHARITY. 

A Discourse delivered Jan. 29, 1888. 

INVOCATION. 

We ask your presence, O spiritual beings, that through your 
ministrations we may be enabled to apprehend more fully the truth, 
and receive those thoughts which cannot come to us without your 
assistance. As we here assemble, looking toward you for instruc- 
tion, may truth's divine rays touch our souls, illumine our under- 
standings, and lead us into paths of knowledge and wisdom; and 
may the thoughts given us for consideration bring rest to the 
weary, strength to the weak, courage to the discouraged, and light 
to the spirit wandering in the darkness of ignorance and supersti- 
tion. Lead us and guide us, and our glad songs of thanksgiving 
and words of praise will ascend to you now and evermore. Amen. 



DISCOURSE. 

We take for our subject this morning " Charity." 
We know it is an old theme. We may go to the Bible 
and read the texts that have been used in its elucida- 
tion by the ministry since the dawn of Christianity; 
we may say as they have said, " Charity suffereth long 
and is kind," " Charity covereth a multitude of sins " ; 
but in taking up the various thoughts of that book, in 
watching the carrying out — so far as it is possible for 
mortals to do — of this principle, which we believe is 
in itself a sufficient creed for any body of religionists, 
embracing as it does all that is good in any religious 



20 CHARITY. 

belief, we find that various interpretations of it have 
been given, and that men's ideas of it differ as their 
ideas of God and many other subjects necessarily do 
and must. 

As Spiritualists we are in need, first, of systematiza- 
tion or organization, with a view to establishing sys- 
tematized charities as a means of doing a work that 
must be carried out upon the love principle, in order 
that justice may be done upon the earthly plane among 
ourselves at least. There are organized charities among 
the different churches, denominations, and religious 
systems ; but we, as a body of thinkers, find ourselves 
outside of these organizations, the tenor of our thought 
making a division wall between us and them. Conse- 
quently, when one of our number appeals for aid to 
one of these institutions, the first question asked is : 
" What is your religious belief ? to what religious body 
do you belong ? " Thus, as these lines of demarcation, 
which have always separated and made divisions in the 
ranks of mankind, are still being drawn, it becomes 
necessary for us, as believers in a peculiar system of 
thought, to organize in such a way as to enable us at 
least to care for our own in a systematic manner. 

We know it will require patience and persistent en- 
deavor for a long period to accomplish this result, but 
we think it is time that more was done in this direction 
among professed Spiritualists. There has already been 
a great deal of talk, but much of it has risen like smoke 
and disappeared, and but little has been carried out 
practically. Homes, which should be made homes in 
the real and true sense of the word, should be founded 
for the aged of both sexes. We would like to see your 



CHARITY. 21 

• 

" Ladies' Aid Societies " and your " Industrial Unions," 
for instance, take, not only rooms where lectures should 
be delivered, social gatherings held, and suppers given 
once a week, but a house which should be made a home 
for those whose necessities make them dependent upon 
the kindness, love, and charity of others. 

It is a hard, cold world when we come to depend 
upon what is called charity on this plane of being. In 
some way it has come to be considered a disgrace to 
arrive at a condition where it becomes necessary to ask 
for assistance ; but what, I pray you, is every one of us, 
in the beginning, but an object of charity ? We come 
upon this stage of life unable to put even a mouthful 
of food to our lips, and so dependent upon others that, 
left to ourselves, death would ensue in a few hours. 
Man is the most helpless of all animals. Nearly every 
form of life beneath him has an independence of liveli- 
hood that makes us almost question, at times, the wis- 
dom of the Infinite. So, I say, as helpless dependents 
we start out in life, let our surroundings be what they 
may. Some of us, it is true, have advantages over 
others, and the best of these, the one for which we 
should be most thankful, and the possession of which 
should make us charitably disposed toward those born 
without it, is a bodily organization that makes us capa- 
ble of becoming independent. I affirm that in the 
organization of the individual is the all that settles the 
question at birth as to whether that being is to be 
dependent or independent. The pre-natal conditions, 
influences, etc., at work even among our ancestry, the 
very incidents and accidents that may befall our mother 
in the sensitive weeks and months prior to our advent 



22 CHARITY. 

upon the mundane sphere, may wreck or injure our 
organization to such an extent that we may literally be 
cast upon the shores of time helpless and dependent. 
Not only this, but even some little circumstance that 
may arise, making a mother at that time feel her 
dependence, as the present condition of society is likely 
to do, may actually disqualify her unborn babe for a 
man or woman of business. Some deed, incident, or 
event, little as you think, may be the turning-point that 
shall decide whether or not your child shall be born 
with an inheritance that will give it anything like its 
rights in this material world. 

When the conditions surrounding birth are known to 
have so much influence upon the expression of our 
better selves here in this journey of life, we ought to 
exercise the broadest charity in our dealing with those 
who are so constituted that all the preaching, teaching, 
and arguing possible cannot aid them in acquiring 
independence, for it is impossible for them to grasp and 
make use of these ideas. We see the necessity, then, 
which the spirit-world has constantly pointed out, of a 
form or system of society that shall permit a growth 
into that oneness of interests that will make the entire 
race one large family. We are aware that many objec- 
tions have been and will be raised to any mode of life 
such as that of Communism; yet we hold that man 
must ultimately grow into a condition where all who 
are unable to gain a livelihood will be cared for as 
considerately and tenderly as are our insane and our 
weak in body. Those who are deficient in the faculties 
whose development and exercise are necessary for the 
acquirement of the comforts of life will, in the future 



CHARITY. 23 

of man's development, be surrounded by conditions 
conducive to the unfoldment of their moral, intellectual 
and physical nature. These ideas will be regarded as 
impracticable and visionary by some, but many of the 
greatest improvements that we now enjoy were called 
visionary in the past, and all the wonderful inventions 
were, in the first place, called fanatics' or fools' ideas. 
I believe society can grow to this condition, and when 
it »does, we shall have taken the most important step 
toward overcoming crime and sin of every character. 
Want, and his untrained, undeveloped, undisciplined 
nature, drive man, in many instances, to the commission 
of crime of which he would not otherwise be guilty. 
We most earnestly beseech all Spiritualists to take into 
consideration these thoughts, and let brotherly love 
and charity govern all. Again, circumstances over 
which the individual has no control many times, leave 
him at last in a condition where, unless kindly assisted 
by a stronger hand, he would certainly suffer. 

We, as a people, have a sensitive class, unknown 
outside the ranks of Spiritualism, that cannot be cared 
for as they should by those who are not familiar with 
their susceptible condition. When it is found that by 
the use of their mediumistic powers they cannot earn 
sufficient for their support, or that, in the exercise of 
their spiritual gifts, they have been wrecked, — physi- 
cally speaking, — our public mediums should be given 
a home such as this of which I have spoken. I could 
name two or three now, yes, more than that number 
right here in Boston, who need and deserve such care 
and attention ; and I do not think I shall be doing 
wrong if I call the name of our gifted and faithful 



24 CHARITY. 

servant, Mrs. Cushman, who, during a cold, bleak, 
stormy, hard winter like this, gets but a pittance at 
best. When, in such a case, one comes to the necessity 
of appealing for aid, we should take her and care for 
her tenderly and lovingly, and she should be made to 
feel no more dependent than our grandmother, our 
father or mother would in our family circle, when he 
or she is no longer able to sustain the burdens of life. 

In the exercise of mediumistic powers, the vital mag- 
netism, which is the spiritual force of the organism, is 
largely drawn upon, thus devitalizing the body. " But 
why do the spirits," you ask, " allow their mediums to 
use this force, or power, until it is exhausted ? " Be- 
cause, as we said once before, having undertaken this 
work, it is impossible to give it up. All the bodily, as 
well as mental powers and forces of the individual, 
have been turned into different channels during the 
process of development, and it is beyond the power of 
spirit to turn back the tide from its natural course. 

We can only touch lightly upon the subject at this 
point, the time at our disposal not permitting us to 
take it up and explain it as we would like. After one 
is worn out in the service, it is no longer a question of 
why didn't you stop before you fell down ? It is better 
to work in the harness until the work is done, and then 
if the old body does not break down and let the spirit 
go free, we, as Spiritualists, should take it and care for 
it as tenderly as though it were a treasure committed 
to our keeping — as it really is, if we look at the matter 
aright. If the cold, hard winter that is upon us, to- 
gether with the high price of fuel, make those of you 
in moderate circumstances feel that life's battle is hard, 



CHAMTY. 25 

what must it be to those who have much less or none 
at all, and especially to those who are so sensitive that 
they will nearly perish ere they ask for aid from 
mortals to help keep soul and body together ? 

So we say, our first duty is no longer to talk, but to 
go to work upon a practical basis ; then, when wealthy 
Spiritualists see that there is organization, system and 
purpose underlying this movement, we believe they 
will take hold with you and labor for mankind. We 
would impress upon the minds of all Spiritualists of 
means the necessity of working while it is day. You 
may hold on to your wealth while you live, and in your 
will be very generous ; but the world is not generous, 
your heirs are not generous, and nine chances to one 
it will be contested and set aside on the ground that 
you were a Spiritualist, and therefore not of sound 
mind. Hence, I repeat, care for those who need assist- 
ance, build homes for the homeless and aged, and do 
the work while it is yours to do, while the day of 
earthly life is upon you. 

While we have spoken of lines and divisions in the 
ranks of mankind that must necessarily be considered 
by us in our work, still we are looking forward to the 
time when these barriers will be swept away, and we 
desire you as Spiritualists to set the example in this 
direction. I hope there will be that breadth of liber- 
ality in the distribution of your charities that when you 
have succored your own, to learn that human beings are 
in distress will be all that you require to know of them. 

We know that we shall meet with opposition upon 
this point from those upon our own plane of thought, 
who call themselves practical men and women. " We 



26 CHARITY. 

must be practical," they say ; " therefore it is necessary 
for us to ask first concerning those who apply for aid, 
if they are worthy ? " In the distribution of charities 
that question cuts us the worst of all things, for we 
feel that the fact that a human being is cold, hungry, 
or in distress, makes him worthy of help. He may 
have been in the lowest paths of life, the reason for 
which you might perhaps find in the inherited conse- 
quences and results just spoken of ; but while you were 
making your investigations, the man might starve. It 
is better to help those in need first, and find out their 
shortcomings afterward, if you have time enough. They 
may have done wrong, but they never will do much 
better until they are warmed up, their hunger satisfied, 
and their surroundings made favorable for the develop- 
ment of their nobler and better selves. If the applicant 
for assistance be a woman, the examination is especially 
rigorous in all institutions. It must be found out who 
she is, what she is, where she came from, and what she 
has been doing. 

The best means to employ in seeking to lead those 
whose faults and shortcomings are many, out upon the 
highway by which higher planes of life may be reached, 
is charity clothed in the garment of love. According 
to the new definition, charity is love, and if it does not 
succeed in making them better and nobler, then the 
best of God's remedies has failed on earth. Apply it 
long enough, however, and I have the utmost faith in 
its efficacy as a cure for all the ills that man is heir to, 
morally speaking. Some one who has made a few 
applications of it upon a certain individual unsuccess- 
fully, and then in despair has turned the cold shoulder 



CHARITY. 27 

upon the erring one, says : " I have tried that person 
over and over again, and it is of no use." Try him 
seventy times seven, as said one of old, and then seven 
hundred times that, if necessary, we add, for a human 
soul lifted out of the mire and brought out of darkness 
into light will pay you for the seven hundred times 
trying, as well as for the seven or seventy. We have 
those in our ranks who have but little backbone ; but 
while wishing that they had more stamina let us have 
charity for them. There are those in the Church, also, 
it appears, who have no backbone at all ; and, while w T e 
regret it, let us have charity for them as well. 

Ought a man who is convinced of the truthfulness of 
Spiritualism to come out of the church? an interrogator 
asks. It seems to us that he ought, but we cannot 
stand in his place. We should say that "honesty is 
the best policy," but we understand that all are not 
capable of acting up to a high standard of integrity. 
Such as these need to remain in slavery to others, as 
they really are, until they grow a little more and can 
bear the light, whose warm, effulgent rays will strengthen 
and develop their spiritual nature. We find that one of 
the greatest needs in this direction is a love of the 
truth, and we urgently appeal to all to cultivate the 
very best within them. So we say to all in the church 
who believe in Spiritualism : Come out from among 
them and be ye separate. Do not skulk behind the 
church pews, the church creed or faith, if you do not 
longer believe it. If every man and woman were to 
come out of the churches to-day who does not accept 
literally the creed as it is, with all of its articles of 
faith, how many do you think would be left? Very 



28 CHARITY. 

few indeed. You will find very few church members 
who can give you an intelligent answer when you ask 
about the articles of faith of their particular denomina- 
tion. They have subscribed to them without much 
thought, and they cannot tell you the doctrinal points 
at the foundation of them. We pass these by and take 
up the class of men whose views have grown broader 
than their creed, but who still remain in the church. 
Beecher, during the latter years of his ministry, was 
one of these. To our way of thinking, the man who 
does not live up to his convictions is not strictly honest; 
but until we are able to place ourselves in the position 
of another it is unwise to say what we would do under 
like circumstances. It is easier for one to step out of 
the old rut than for another; it is easier for some to 
break the shell of their former environments than for 
others ; therefore let us have charity for those who do 
not see their duty as we do. Though we should say, 
Come out, be honest, be upright, still it is our belief 
that just at the point where they have developed 
enough spiritually to be of any particular use to the 
cause of truth they will and do come out and we find 
them in our midst. Spiritualism is truth to you to-day. 
It was not a few years ago, because your perceptions 
were not sufficiently developed to enable you to grasp 
the philosophy or the facts. Later experiences made 
it impossible for you longer to reject it. The greatest 
spiritual light that has ever penetrated the darkness of 
human life with its divine rays touched you, and you 
became enthusiastic. You could no longer remain in 
the churchfold, even with the hope of winning others 
In your way of thinking, but must be outspoken. Noth- 



CHARITY. . 29 

ing wins like truth, or carries such conviction as candor 
and sincerity. 

Coming back to our subject, " Charity," we hope we 
shall be forgiven when we say that a great many Spirit- 
ualists are apathetic and unmindful of duty in this 
direction. They need awakening. They do not realize 
the necessity of even contributing to the support of the 
cause in a general way, to say nothing of associated 
charities. Perhaps it is the result of circumstances. 
Former beliefs leave their impress upon the mind and 
spirit of the individual, and when discarded there is a 
corresponding reaction. The fear of future punishment 
or conditions has been the spur that has forced them to 
a performance of their religious duties, but when Spirit- 
ualism teaches them that there is no place of eternal 
torment, no avenging and angry Deity, they swing, as 
it were, out on the other side and become careless. We 
also find truly good men and women in the spiritualistic 
ranks, with warm, tender hearts, but, owing in a great 
measure to the lack of organization on the part of 
Spiritualists as a whole, they forget the responsibilities 
that rest upon them, the duty they owe society and 
their fellow-mortals, .and settle down into a state of 
lethargy. Upon the minds of all such we would most 
earnestly impress the fact that while there is no death, 
hell, or judgment to fear, still there is wrong to dread, 
and a nobility of character to develop which should be 
an incentive to right acting and the living of higher 
and better lives. There is much for us to do upon the 
earthly plane. There is not a sorrow that comes to the 
heart of one mortal that is not felt by all. Some, we 
know, will say that this is all nonsense, but we affirm 



30 CHARITY. 

that just so surely as the sun and moon influence this 
planet, and vice versa, that which affects the life of one 
individual also affects, in a degree, the lives of all 
others. As parts of one great whole we cannot afford 
to have any portion of the great body universal dis- 
eased; Ave cannot afford to have wrong, sorrow, and 
want abide where any one of us can do aught to pre- 
vent it. If we fail in the little that Ave can do, if Ave 
fall short in charity, loA r e, and kindness, and in the 
living out of these principles, then Ave fail in all that 
constitutes true religion, and the injury Ave do ourselves 
affects all others in a measure. 

Leaving the thought of associated charities, let us 
consider the true attitude of man toAvard the eA r il-doer, 
and as before Ave Avill look Avithin our oavii ranks. We 
will not pass this point Avithout speaking of that Avhich 
is of such vast importance to us, namely, our phe- 
nomena. Sometimes we feel that Ave cannot be too 
severe in our denunciation of those Avho haA r e been 
found guilty of deception ; Avho willingly and Avilfully 
trifle at the altar of the holiest of holies, AA r here the 
angels come to let in the light upon mankind. There 
is, however, much to be considered here. While we 
find individuals Avho give fraudulent communications 
or manifestations, there are also conditions existing 
Avhich make it necessary for us to be AAdse and discreet 
in meting out our justice. There is such a Avide differ- 
ence in the experiences of different indiAdduals with 
the same medium, that our advice to each one is to use 
your own judgment and reason in settling the question 
for yourself in every individual case. If you desire to 
know whether spirits can clothe themselves again in 



CHABITY. 31 

matter, it is your privilege, while conducting your 
investigations earnestly and sincerely, to use your own 
judgment, and when you find an open, flagrant imposi- 
tion, to denounce it. 

Our Spiritualism rests, in a great measure, upon the 
solid rock of facts, a part of which are physical mani- 
festations, and if not dealt wisely with they will strike 
a terrible blow at the very foundation of the cause. As 
a religion, Spiritualism carries weight where no other 
religious system ever has, for it gives positive proof and 
assurance. So, while we have good and evil, false and 
true, genuine and counterfeit, we must exercise our 
charity at the same time that we mete out justice. It 
rouses all our righteous indignation to be imposed upon 
in the investigation of truth; but it is better to bear 
imposition a few times, at least, than to be guilty of 
touching rudely one of those whose necessities and 
requirements are such that if too harshly dealt Avith 
the work of preparation that may have been accom- 
plished by the spirits for the individual, whom in time 
they hope to elevate and make a useful instrument, will 
be retarded or entirely undone. " Are you advocating 
charity in a case of obvious deception?" some listener 
asks. Yes ; charity that softens our dealings until we 
know of a certainty what we are doing. 

Before we close we desire to speak a few words for 
womankind, to awaken within our sister woman chari- 
table feelings toward her sisters in all conditions. We 
believe most of you present do not need this particular 
argument, for there is no lesson that has been taught 
with so much earnestness and so oft-repeated by the 
angels as this. We would not foster wrong, or sin, or 



32 CHARITY. 

evil doing, but we would that every woman was as true 
to every other woman as man is to man. "You would 
not be true to a false woman ? " questions one. Why, 
certainly; true to the woman, not to the deed she has 
done ; true to the woman, that we may uplift her ; true 
to the woman, that we may lead her to nobler woman- 
hood, and make of her what was born within her but 
what has not been expressed. Many times she has 
been driven from bad to worse, from worse to despera- 
tion, from desperation to death, beyond Avhose gates is 
the only place where a woman who has done wrong 
and been wronged finds as yet anything like the condi- 
tions that will help her out of the slough in which she 
is struggling. We know that efforts have been made 
for the uplifting and redemption of degraded women, 
but not in the spirit . that they should be. We say to 
women, It is your work ! The fallen of your sex will 
never be uplifted, saved, redeemed or elevated to a 
high condition of womanhood until you stand by their 
side and do your duty without regard to public opinion. 
When you feel the necessity of expressing a certain 
opinion, of taking a particular position, of clasping the 
hand of a sister to help her, do it, no matter what color 
the face of your neighbor may turn, and by and by 
such deeds will leave an impress upon your very souls, 
and stamp even your outward bearing with a power 
that will defeat the purpose of the evil-disposed, for 
they will not dare say aught against the women that 
have been true, upright, honest, and steadfast in de- 
fense of every other woman, until they have helped to 
make their sisters what they themselves aspire to be. 



IN RE DR. TALMAGE. 

A Synopsis of a Discourse delivered May 6, 1888. 

oo^Xc — 

Religion, as it is at present divided and subdivided, 
presents to the observer the aspect of so many walls of 
defense and attack. A man in choosing the ministerial 
avocation looks about him, examines these different 
positions, decides where he wishes to be garrisoned, 
takes his place behind these walls, and begins his work 
accordingly. 

He takes his position as Catholic, Presbyterian, 
Methodist, Congregationalist, Baptist, — or in any other 
of the many branches of the Christian faith, — and 
whichever of these positions he takes determines his 
range. He must not reach beyond the limits prescribed 
for him in any of these instances. He stands behind 
the pulpit ; this is his barrack ; the Bible is his wall of 
defense ; in his hand is a banner on which is an inscrip- 
tion : this inscription is the creed of the particular 
branch of the church to which he belongs ; these are the 
colors he is expected to bear aloft, and these determine 
what he shall say and how far he can go. The book 
all accept, but differ in their interpretation, and these 
banners or creeds tell their point of difference. 

People are thinking to-day ; they are living in an age 
of thought and of rich experiences. These thoughts 
and experiences exert an influence upon the mind of 



34 IN KE DR. TALMAGE. 

these standard-bearers. They cannot help but feel its 
quickening breath, and their theology is affected by it. 
Views of death, particularly, are changing through the 
influence of the teaching of Spiritualism. These views 
will and do creep into the sermons of the divines, into 
the songs of the poet, and are felt in every direction. 
The popular minister gives his sermon on a future life 
and describes a future state of existence in such a dif- 
ferent way from the old-time theology, that he excites 
criticism on the part of some of his hearers ; they have 
heard something like it before; they are wide awake, 
they have been listening perhaps to some spiritual me- 
dium, or attended a seance. And they say : " Why, 
our minister gave us a regular spiritual discourse to- 
day; talked of the other life just as the Spiritualists 
do." 

Then the said minister becomes frightened — does 
not wish to be called a Spiritualist, and therefore rises 
to explain. Mr. Talmage has risen to explain ; some- 
body has called him a Spiritualist, and this would never 
do. 

Now it would be (and was generally) expected that 
a man occupying the position he occupies, and speaking 
to the vast assemblage he addresses, would seek to have 
a thorough understanding of the subject he handles ; 
that he would give it careful investigation and research 
— know just what it was himself, and then give the 
people the benefit of that knowledge as a sincere and 
truthful man, who felt the importance of such move- 
ments for public weal or woe. 

Contrary to this, it appears that he does not feel 
called upon to go to work upon Spiritualism because of 



IN RE DR. TALMAGE. 35 

its faults or its virtues, neither to give the people some 
great truth, or to expose some great error : Somebody 
has called him a Spiritualist — and he, the eminent 
Talmage, fortified by Calvinistic walls, wishes to be 
known by its tenets. His creed-book teaches foreor- 
dination by election for adults, and the doctrine of 
infant damnation has not yet been expunged. Yet he 
wishes to be understood. He must not be called a 
Spiritualist, to whatever spiritualistic pictures of the 
after-life not in consonance with that creed he may 
have given utterance in moments of inspiration. 

Did he speak on Spiritualism from any desire to re- 
veal truth or expose error we should feel like answering 
his arguments (if he used any), or meeting his state- 
ments or assertions with our reasons for the existence 
of whatsoever he might criticise ; but when a man 
occupying his position — though he may be called the 
greatest among his kind — descends to the use of as 
much misrepresentation of a cause as he has in this 
case, we consider him scarcely worth the time spent in 
making any reply whatsoever. Still, as he occupies 
the place he does, and the world of Christendom eagerly 
hears or reads what he says, we shall give his positions 
a cursory glance : 

First, what is this sermon ? It is practically a resur- 
rection of an old sermon delivered by him, some four 
years ago, in Brooklyn ; it is almost word for word ; 
there is scarcely a point in one that is not to be found 
in the other; there is no evidence of recent research, 
and apparently no more study has been devoted to the 
subject — a subject that is awakening thought in almost 
every direction, that is finding its way into all condi- 



36 IN HE DR. TALMAGE. 

tions of society. He takes a sermon delivered three or 
four years ago, the text being the only noticeable 
change, and gives it anew to his intelligent hearers. 
There in his great congregation were the Spiritualists 
of Brooklyn going to hear whether they would receive 
fair dealings at his hands. Seated among his people, in 
all the pews, from among the most intelligent and re- 
fined of Brooklyn society, were ladies and gentlemen, 
judges, lawyers and doctors (even some of the officers 
of his own church are at least gifted as healers and 
clairvoyants), in short from every walk in life were 
present believers to hear themselves abused and mis- 
represented in these sermons. 

He says Spiritualism is an old doctrine : In all ages 
there have been necromancers — those who consult 
with spirits of the departed ; charmers — those who put 
subjects in a mesmeric state ; sorcerers — those who by 
taking poisonous drugs see everything and hear every- 
thing ; dreamers, who in their sleeping moments see 
the future world and hold consultation with spirits ; 
astrologers, experts in palmistry. Yea, before the time 
of Christ, Brahmins Avent through all the table-moving 
that spirits have exploited to-day. "Is Spiritualism," 
he asks, " any different from all these ? I answer : 
They belong to the same family, and are exhumations 
from an unseen world." He then asks : " What does 
God think about it ? " Well, I don't know just what 
God thinks about it. But I know, through the olden 
volume by which Mr. Talmage sets such store, what 
God has done : that he followed Moses into the land of 
Egypt, and, according to the story, surpassed the nec- 
romancers and sorcerers of that land in all the experi- 



IN RE DR. TALMAGE. 37 

mental trials, from the turning of a rod in the hands of 
Moses into a living serpent (which swallowed up all 
the other rods) to the turning of the dust of the land 
into creeping vermin ; until the magicians, acknowl- 
edging themselves beaten and Moses to be the chief of 
magicians and sorcerers, said: " Surely, this is the finger 
of God ! " We will take their word for that. 

Mr. Talmage's next allegation is that our deeds are 
done in darkness. This is scarcely worthy of notice, as 
every one familiar with the phenomena knows that 
although some of the manifestations are given in dark- 
ness or semi-darkness, many of the manifestations are 
in the full light of day. In the very beginning most 
startling phenomena took place at all hours of the day, 
and have continued so to do, ever since. 

He spoke of bad orthography, bad grammar, and 
bad morals ; spoke of having a communication from a 
spiritual medium, sending it back, etc. ; then followed, 
by telling us what God says, or gives us his curse 
on all those who seek " familiar spirits " ; and in this 
quotation the Brooklyn divine cites as the word of God 
a sentence which we really deem unfit for us to repeat 
in this place. 

To say that the teachings of Spiritualism lead to im- 
morality is as false as the rest of the statements he has 
made ; and any one comparing the same with those he 
advocates will see whether the tendency to immorality 
is on the one side or the other. Spiritualism teaches 
individual responsibility, right for the sake of right, 
and the law of compensation and retribution following 
the individual deeds of the individual man : That as a 
man soweth so shall he reap — in opposition to the doc- 



38 IN RE *DR. TALMAGE. 

trine that man can sow discord, sin and corruption, and 
by belief in the merits of another can escape the logical 
consequences. Some Spiritualists may lead immoral 
lives, but it would be as unfair to judge Spiritualism by 
this as to say that Christianity is to blame for the crimes 
of some of its ministers. 

Let us see how Mr. Talmage holds up Bible pictures : 
He describes an ancient stance, and willingly depicts 
this as an object of ridicule. He says: " Saul went to 
the witch of Endor, called for the Spirit of Samuel. 
Here he conies ; the floor of the tenement opens and 
gray hairs float up; then the forehead, the eyes, the 
lips, the shoulders, the arms, the feet, the entire body 
of dead Samuel wrapped in sepulchral robes appearing 
to the astonished group, who stagger back, hold their 
breath and shiver with terror. The dead prophet, white 
and awful, from the tomb, begins to move his ashen 
lips, glares upon King Saul and cries out, ' What did 
you bring me up for ? ' And the King was terrified." 
We do not wonder that he was. It would be well for 
you to read the original story as told in the Old Testa- 
ment, and see how much Scripture our critic has manu- 
factured. If we were as unfair in quoting Scripture 
and embellishing stories as he proves himself to be in 
this instance, we should describe another Bible stance : 
Jesus has been crucified; his disciples are terror- 
stricken ; they seek solitude, seclusion ; I do not know 
but it was a dark seance — the historian is careful at 
least to tell us the doors were locked : they were weep- 
ing ; he had promised them so much that their disap- 
pointment was great ; they wondered, and were sore 
afraid ; presently they began to see something on the 



IN RE DR. TALMAGE. 39 

floor of the tenement ; there it was : First the brown 
curls floated up, then the forehead, then the mild blue 
eyes, then the pleading lips, then the shoulders, then 
the pierced side, then the feet, then the entire body 
wrapped in sepulchral robes! How did it get there? 
the door was locked ; the key in the lock ; yet there he 
was, The Crucified One, looking on the astonished 
group ; and the disciples all burst out laughing ! We 
have been as strictly true to the reading in the one 
case as Mr. Talmage has in the other; they are both 
Bible stories, told with a little ministerial license. 

The next point sought to be made by Mr. Talmage is 
that Spiritualism ruins the physical health, wrecks the 
nervous system and leads to insanity ; that there is not 
an insane asylum from Bangor to San Francisco but 
has its torn and bleeding victims of this " delusion " ! 
Any one taking the pains to personally ascertain will 
find that he is either entirely ignorant of the truth of 
this matter, is not familiar with the statistics, or wil- 
fully misrepresents. The fact is that for one Spiritual- 
ist to be found in these places, twenty can be found 
who were brought there through the evangelical type 
of religious excitement. 

Again he says Spiritualism is a social and marital 
curse, etc. ; but this statement of his is only on a par 
with the residue of his assertions ; and we have only to 
say that it comes with rather poor grace from a minister 
who naturally, and according to creedal usage, holds 
up before the people as patterns of excellence such ex- 
amples of social and marital life as Solomon and David; 
while the "misfortunes" of the modern clergy in the 
way of sexual criminality are too well known through- 



40 IN RE DR. TALMAGE. 

out the land to need any pointing out at the present 
time by way of answer by comparison between the 
relative standing of Christian teacher and Spiritual 
believer. 

Then he sums all up and says : " What does God say 
about Spiritualism ? He never speaks of it but in thun- 
der tones of indignation. He says, 4 1 will be a swift 
witness against the sorcerer ! ' Thou shalt not suffer a 
witch to live, and lest you should make some important 
distinction between witchcraft and Modern Spiritualism, 
God says, in so many words : ' There shall not be 
among you a consulter of familiar spirits, or wizards, 
or necromancer, for they that do these things-are an 
abomination unto the Lord.' Now," he adds, "be a 
Spiritualist if you dare ! " Let us see ; we remember 
that God prohibited something once before : it was 
in the Garden of Eden. God had made the garden, 
and everything within it; then had made man and 
woman, placing them in the Garden. In the centre of 
the Garden he had placed two trees, which he did not 
intend they should make any use of. He was going 
out for a little while from the Garden, so he called the 
man and woman to him, and said : " Now look here ! 
I am going away ; I want you to enjoy yourselves ; 
here in the Garden is everything to make you happy. 
All is yours; of all these things you may freely eat. 
But there are two trees in the middle of the Garden — 
these you must not touch ; if you do, you will get into 
trouble" They waited till his back was turned, then 
Eve, woman-like, turned around, took a good look at 
the trees, and, said she, " Now there is something ivorth 
having" and she walked right up, shook that tree, took 



IN RE DR. TALMAGE. 41 

some of the fruit, ate it, and said to her companion : 
" Adam, that is good ; it is splendid ; have some ! " 
and Adam took some; and I will guarantee that since 
Mr. Talmage apostrophized the people with his "Now 
be a Spiritualist if you dare " — as both himself and 
God forbid it — the New York and Brooklyn mediums 
have had more patronage than for a long time before. 
Forbidden fruit always had a tempting sweetness for 
mankind ; and if a cause had nothing to recommend it 
of itself it would grow by virtue of the persecutions 
visited upon it by its opponents. What would Chris- 
tianity have been but for the persecuting and crucifying 
Jews ? without the crown of martyrdom bestowed upon 
its reputed founder? Men cannot crucify to-day; they 
can only hurl coarse and bigoted epithets, which action 
has always proved the power of growth to the cause so 
vilified. 

Fear not, ye who cherish this great Revelation of the 
nineteenth century ! who have received undoubted evi- 
dence of immortality! The believers in Christianity 
have only faith in that concerning which you have posi- 
tive knowledge. Truth is mighty ; it prospers through 
obloquy ; it grows amid adversity ; it is deathless, and 
its reign shall have no end! 



SIGNS OF PROGRESS; IN FACT, IN FICTION. 

Inspirational Discourse given in Berkeley Hall, 
Boston. 



^*&< 



INVOCATION. 

Source of our strength, again we turn to thee, asking that the 
lessons of truth received to-night may strengthen and encourage 
each and all of us on life's journey. Enable us to go within the 
temple of our own souls, and to drive out from thence everything 
which binds to earth, all discordant elements, all strifes and inhar- 
monies, cherishing only that which will lead us upward in the 
pathway of light ! And for the guiding hands that ever lead in the 
pathway of progress and soul growth, for the blessings of the 
present and the promise of the future, do we return to thee our 
thanksgiving and our praise. 



LECTURE. 



We have chosen as the subject of onr thought to- 
night, " Signs of Progress in Fact and in Fiction." All 
along the history of mankind, going as far back as is 
possible for us to go, we find the marks of development, 
that are, in reality, the milestones of the ages, that tell 
us how far man has progressed mentally and spiritually. 
Everywhere in the past we find expressions of his na- 
ture as a religious being. He reared altars; he made 
offerings to a being or power of whom he knew little. 
Away back in the ages we find the records of search 
after something above and beyond himself, something 



SIGNS OF PROGRESS. 43 

to come after the change called death, for a knowledge 
of which he has ever been blindly groping. The rec- 
ords of this are the signs of his progress or develop- 
ment, the milestones of the race, telling us how far it 
has journeyed. 

As man has advanced, he has erected better altars, 
has made nobler sacrifices, has expressed a higher ideal 
of divinity, showing that he himself has advanced to 
just that extent. 

Literature, also, gives us an idea of the progress of 
the ages, showing the growth and unfoldment of human 
thought. When I look into the history of the past, I 
find man there, as an historian, a recorder. What has 
he written ? What has he left recorded ? He has writ- 
ten of himself. He has left a record of what he was 
at that time Avhen he made the record. From age to 
age he has shoAvn us himself, showing what progress 
he has made, how far he has advanced, what faculties 
of the human brain then predominated, in what part of 
his being he actually lived most. 

When we look upon ourselves as human beings en- 
dowed with many varying attributes of mind and char- 
acter, realizing something of the powers and capacities 
which belong to us in various directions, knowing that 
sometimes one of these attributes, sometimes another, 
becomes, for the time, the governing power, dominating 
the others, we can understand that there have been 
times in the ages of the past, in the history of man as a 
progressive being, when one of these attributes domi- 
nated the others. 

We have that in our make-up which we call temper, 
or anger, which we feel when the lower passions of our 



44 SIGNS OF PROGRESS; 

being are aroused. There is, also, in the long pathway 
of man's progress, an unfolding, a supremacy of the 
higher nature which will overcome this. This wisdom, 
or higher intelligence, must, at last, be supreme over 
these lower faculties, and hold dominion and sway 
over them ; and we, who have been troubled because of 
this tendency to anger in our nature, may take courage 
from the fact that by continual watchfulness, by deter- 
mined will to overcome it, we may gradually grow into 
that condition in which these lesser or lower attributes 
shall become subject to the higher, and our being be 
ruled by the power of wisdom. When we have gained 
that position, when we have reached that state of un- 
foldment where we can say, " I am ruler of myself ! " 
we have made a greater conquest than the ruler of 
any physical or material kingdom has ever done. No 
martial conqueror ever gained half the victory that he 
gains who conquers himself. No man is conqueror 
until he can say to this appetite, this passion, this 
desire, " Stay thou here," and it shall obey him. 

Now, I believe there was a time when the reason of 
man had not unfolded to a degree that would enable 
him to. reason upon these things. In that time, while 
he was, as we have seen, a builder of altars and a 
thinker, as far as a future life was concerned, he was 
yet in his crudest conditions, and his conceptions of 
the Power which he "ignorantly worshipped" were 
necessarily measured by his mental capacity and intelli- 
gence. In those times, when he had no idea of master- 
ing himself, when he looked upon the lower attributes 
of his nature as unconquerable, when he gave way to 
them, and they held power and sway over him, then 



IN FACT, IN FICTION. 45 

his thoughts of God corresponded to his thoughts of 
nature. Whenever he saw a disturbance in nature 
(nature being to him the expression of God), he took 
it as an evidence of God's anger. Being himself a 
creature possessing this attribute, subject to its domi- 
nating power, he conceived of a Deity who became angry 
with men for their deeds, and, in his anger, violent and 
unappeasable, visited them with terrible punishments. 
Storms, lightnings, thunder, volcanoes, earthquakes, 
were to him but expressions of the anger of God de- 
scending in this way upon the violaters of his law. As 
proof of this, we have the teachings of Grecian my- 
thology, and the history of ancient Egypt and Rome, 
with their gods, all possessing those attributes and pas- 
sions which man felt in himself. 

All these attributes which man possessed he believed 
the various gods to possess, all the way down to the 
time when were written the records of ancient Judaism, 
where we find the picture of their angry Jehovah, 
cherishing his wrath through the centuries, until he 
found by the sacrifice of innocent blood the means of 
pacifying his anger ; but you to whom it has been given 
to live in the nineteenth century, bright with the light 
of truth which has been evolved through the revela- 
tions of science, you to whom the voice of science in 
various directions has spoken as with thunder tones, 
have learned that the old stories of creation were only 
mystical, mythical fabrications which had their birth in 
the brain of man. Geology has given you the genesis 
of our earth in a record running through the " Bible 
of the Ages," — the solid strata of this earth on which 
you dwell. 



46 SIGNS OF PROGRESS; 

In this nineteenth century we find wonderful signs 
of progress. In this nineteenth century such a light has 
dawned upon the world that all, whether calling them- 
selves skeptic or Christian, are compelled to accept the 
new idea of creation, and the fact that there is an effort 
on the part of those who have rested their belief on 
the words of the old Book, to reconcile or harmonize 
the two records, is a sign of progress. You know now, 
it is said that the six days of creation meant six un- 
limited periods of time. They didn't tell you that in 
your boyhood. You didn't find it in the teachings of 
your catechism. But the revelations of nature have 
gone on; the chapters of geology have been written, 
and in the light of to-day they are read so clearly that 
wise theologians take the chapters of their Bible and 
adjust them by this measurement. A sign of progress. 
We are no longer taught that a day was the period of 
time between the rising and the setting of the sun, but 
that it was a season, like the day of Moses, the day 
of Christ. So we have the days or periods of creation. 
Long days they must have been, making a long week. 

Some there are who still cling to their cherished 
idols, still hold to the old ideas of the past ; but they 
are few in number, comparatively, except in external- 
isms. By this, I mean to say that the Church in ex- 
ternal form stands very much as it has since the time 
we speak of as the Reformation, when Martin Luther 
gave Protestantism its existence. The great schism in 
the original Christian Church created by Luther has 
gone on, widening and increasing as man has gradually 
thought his way out of the great labyrinth of error in 
which he found himself involved; and each one who 



IN FACT, IN FICTION. 47 

has so thought and fought his way toward the truth 
has left the record of his progress, has left one more 
milestone, showing to the rest of mankind how far he 
has gone. 

One sign of progress was the system of theology 
taught by John Wesley, and the introduction of the 
free-grace platform into the Calvinistic creed of the age. 
It was a higher conception of God. It was a broader, 
grander thought. A little later came the founders of 
Universalism telling of a plan of salvation for the whole 
human race, saying that anything less than this would 
be a failure unworthy of a God. Thus Universalism 
erected its milestone of progress ; and then Unitarian- 
ism with its liberal teachings concerning the nature of 
God; and so on, until we have Liberalism in the 
churches, a liberal Christianity. So, gradually, man 
has unfolded like a blossom, thinking more and better, 
having higher and more noble conceptions of God, in 
proportion as his own character became more elevated 
and humane, farther removed from the sensuous and 
cruel. Every free, grand thought and word has been a 
lever to raise humanity. It has opened wider and wider 
the gates of truth. All over every portion of our earth 
where man's intellect has been awakened is dawning a 
better, brighter day. It has come little by little, and it 
has been purchased with a price. Heroes have been 
martyrs for truth all the way along. It has been bought 
with suffering, with the blood of those who have been 
willing victims upon the altars of human progress. 

We do not always realize the price that our freedom 
has cost, nor do we always fully realize how much free- 
dom has been gained even within this century ; and 



48 SIGNS OF PROGRESS; 

freedom would be gained, and gained more rapidly, if 
men were not inclined to be afraid to think for them- 
selves. We see a man who has been checked, held in 
obedience to fixed rules which have been so long estab- 
lished he feels obliged to yield to them, to obey them 
in a measure. A grand thought finds its place in his 
mind ; he gives expression to it, and somebody says, 
" Well, brother, that sounds a good deal like the Free- 
thinkers' doctrine ; you must be a little careful ; you 
don't know where such speculations will lead you." 
And he becomes alarmed, and tries to stop thinking. 
Oh, for men and women who dare to give their thought 
free expression so long as it does not violate the rights 
of another ! When men dare to do this, to live up to 
their highest convictions, we shall not have the hy- 
pocrisy, deception, and selfishness that are practised 
to-day. 

The fearless advocates of truth may meet with oppo- 
sition, they may be traduced and reviled ; but the clank- 
ing chain, the burning fagot, are things of the past. 
They are dead. They have died hard. Error always 
did. Superstition always did. We see the same spirit 
at work to-day devising bills and enactments for inser- 
tion into our laws, which are diametrically opposed to 
the spirit of progress in this age. 

I would call your attention not only to the medical 
bill, in this direction, but to the Sunday law, which, if 
carried into effect, would shut the doors of your assem- 
blies, holding them to be sacrilegious because you do 
not worship God according to some other person's idea ; 
and you to be profane in giving utterance to your 
thought of religious truth. Against this spirit we pro- 



IN FACT, IN FICTION. 49 

test, preferring to take care of our owii souls, risking 
them in the hands of Eternal Justice, knowing that we 
must meet the consequences ourselves of our own 
deeds. We believe in days of rest, hours of rest ; but 
we don't believe in fettering ourselves with a religious 
dogmatical idea that somebody else holds and we do 
not hold. 

We call upon you to utter your protest against this 
spirit of injustice and tyranny. We take it as one of 
the signs of the times, this struggling of this monster 
of power, and it warns us that, if we become lax in our 
duties, and allow the fetters to be woven around us, we 
may have to pay for liberty once more, even as our 
fathers paid for it, the price of suffering, persecution, 
and blood, ere we can extricate ourselves ; for the spirit 
of liberty in this day is too strong to submit to oppres- 
sion. We have had our taste of liberty. We have 
had a breath of fresh air. It has entered our being; 
men, women, and children feel it strong within their 
veins ; and it must do its work, leading upward to 
nobler thought and grander living. We claim the right 
to worship as we will, seeing in everything in nature 
an expression of the Infinite. 

As man has advanced slowly along the ages, some 
one has always been moved upon to give out an ad- 
vanced thought, — a higher, broader idea of truth. It 
has gone out alone, it has drawn back its thousands. 
Theodore Parker did this for you, years ago, in this 
city of Boston. You remember the grand standard of 
liberty, truth, and light which he unfurled, giving it to 
the world as it came to him. He was a standard-bearer 
in the pathway of human progress, teaching truth as he 



50 SIGNS OF PROGRESS; 

understood it, with all the power of his genius and 
inspiration. Such men as these have been lights elec- 
tric, illuminating the way for the race. 

Now look at the signs of progress that are found in 
the works of fiction written in these later days. When 
Elizabeth Stuart Phelps gave to the world her " Gates 
Ajar," with the beautiful idea of a natural world be- 
yond the grave, it was found that the whole human fam- 
ily wanted some such picture as that. They were tired 
of pictures of heaven as a place with golden streets 
and pearly gates, its throne, around or at the corners 
of which were strange animals; with its wonderful 
choir, its forty and four thousand of just men who were 
continually harp-playing. These things did not satisfy 
the longings of human nature. Elizabeth Stuart Phelps 
believed there was a more natural world than that. 
She wrote a description of it, and sent this picture out 
into the world. The world received it with hungry 
hearts. It found its way into libraries, homes, and 
Sunday schools all over the land. Ministers and lay- 
men, men, women, and children, welcomed it. It met 
the needs of the people. Was not their consciousness 
of this need a wonderful sign of progress? 

In the dark days when human slavery was known in 
our land, you remember how a woman was inspired to 
write that wonderful book called a work of fiction, 
" Uncle Tom's Cabin," and you know the wonderful 
power it carried all over the land, turning a mighty 
tide of thought and feeling against the monster Slavery. 
What a sign of progress- in realms of fiction, and what 
a fact in fiction was that ! Sister women, you may 
well rejoice that two such works have been penned by 



IN FACT, IN FICTION. 51 

the hand of woman. They were called works of fiction, 
but they embodied the grandest principles that human 
beings have ever known. Harriet Beecher Stowe, 
when she wrote that story of human life, and love, and 
suffering, of human sin and crime, did more, in our 
opinion, toward creating a hatred of the institution of 
slavery in this land than all that was said or done be- 
fore had been able to accomplish. She did this because 
she reached the heart of the people, the motherhood, 
the fatherhood, the childhood, in the homes. She 
touched chords in the human soul that were respon- 
sive, and this great lesson of human brotherhood did its 
work in the world. 

Everywhere in our literature, in works of fiction as 
well as of science, we find signs of progress. Not alone 
in the writings of Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, but every- 
where, in all the masterpieces of fiction that the last 
few years have produced, we find more or less of the 
teachings of Spiritualism. Nearly every novel has 
some of its philosophy or phenomena, or both: spirit 
communion, by impression, by clairvoyance, by clair- 
audience, by raps ; the materialized forms, human beings 
possessed of and exercising occult powers ; these ap- 
pear on its pages — a marked evidence of a progress of 
knowledge in these directions, and of a universal desire 
for such knowledge. Truly a most encouraging sign 
of progress ! It shows how fast humanity is leaving 
behind it the false teachings of the past. 

And now we would speak of a work of fiction that is 
swaying the minds of the people as no book has since 
the time that Harriet Beecher Stowe gave her great 
work to the world. Like that it is a plea for freedom, 



52 SIGNS OF PROGRESS; 

for deliverance from bondage ; but it is for freedom of 
the soul, release from the thralldom of the teachings 
of the past. We see its struggling hero growing inch 
by inch, fighting his way step by step, by and by stand- 
ing up in the power of his noble manhood, feeling that 
he must know and teach the truth, at any sacrifice, 
even that of being misunderstood by her he loved most. 

How would such a work as this have been received, 
not many years ago ? It would have been laid on the 
shelf, or consigned to the flames with writings of Paine 
and Voltaire. That " Kobert Elsmere " is received as 
it is to-day is a sign of progress. This spirit of prog- 
ress has worked its way through the ages, until to-da,y 
the great mass of humanity is ready for light, for un- 
derstanding. The light of truth is breaking in upon 
them, and they see its reasonableness and beauty. To 
be sure, there are exceptions. Some who read this 
book will shrug their shoulders, and advise their friends 
not to read it, which will probably have the effect of 
causing their friends to procure it at once, and seven 
out of ten will find "Robert Elsmere" making an im- 
pression upon their minds which will never be effaced. 

And so, all around us, in fact and in fiction, we see 
the signs of human progress. By and by the leaders 
of religion, as they are thought to be, the theologians, 
will have to come nearer to the mass of the people, and 
revise their creeds as well as their Bibles. Men who 
believe, as so many of them are beginning to do, that 
there must be " probation after death " for the so-called 
heathen, will not care to send theologians to them, who 
while, according to the old belief, they are saving a 
few, will certainly cause all the rest to be damned, 



IN FACT, IN FICTION. 53 

since those people as a whole must reject the theology- 
presented to them, as they are people who think and 
reason to a great extent. 

Thus the world moves on, and man's conception of 
God grows higher and nobler, broader and brighter, as 
he himself develops more on the higher plane of his 
being. The old idea of him as a being of wrath and 
revenge is being put away as simply a creation of the 
human mind when the race was in its childhood, crude 
and undeveloped, subject to its own passions, and igno- 
rant of its manhood. Now it has become noble, strong, 
brave, and true. The spirit of freedom has been 
aroused. We have tasted of its sweets. We can never 
go back into bondage. 

And so the soul moves on, and must until the highest 
ideal of the human mind becomes a realized fact. The 
purest, noblest, sweetest inspirations that ever came to 
poet, painter, or prophet, have their reality somewhere. 
No picture was ever made, no song ever sung, no glory- 
ever depicted, but was a fact somewhere. Otherwise 
the brain of man could never have conceived it. It is 
a fact in some life, or none could ever have dreamed of 
it ; and so we see the spirit of progress, of truth, of 
love divine, stamping itself upon the fiction of our time, 
woven into our poetry, and sung in our songs. 

Move onward, Spirit of Progress, bring us the coming day, 
When man to man shall be faithful, and justice shall hold sway. 

Move onward, O Spirit of Freedom, and banish the gloomy night 
Of superstition and darkness, and show us the fuller light, 

Which we see now as a promise over the distant hill, 
Growing stronger and brighter, as ever through ages it will, 



54 SIGNS OF PROGRESS. 

Until it shall cleave the shadows, and mists and clouds shall roll, 
That like a heavy curtain still overshadow the soul. 

Move onward, valiant brother, move onward, my sister true, 
Fighting for truth and freedom, as your fathers fought for you. 

You shall see their flag unfurling, advancing every hour, 
And tyranny expiring, slain by its mighty power ; 

While Progress nearer coming, shall, by its bright'ning ray, 
Lead man and woman upward into the perfect day. 



WOMAN. 

Inspirational Discourse given at Berkeley Hall, Boston, 
March 17, 1889. 



>^c 



INVOCATION. 

Unto thee, O ministering Spirits, who lead us gently, day by 
day, from darkness unto light, ever kindly pointing upward, and 
leading our thoughts into the sunlight, ever faithfully keeping thy 
word to us, unto thee we turn this morning, asking that the clouds 
(if such there be about our vision and understanding) may be lifted, 
and that, seeing the truth, there may be on our part a willingness to 
receive. Aid us to gather from it, and appropriate unto our lives, 
according to our individual requirements, that which will strengthen 
us for life's duties and the faithful discharge of its many obliga- 
tions. May we desire only that which is just, that which is noble 
and true, that which will tend to the uplifting of the whole human 
family, laying aside all prejudice, seeking only what is best for 
all. And unto thee, our helpers and our guides, we return thanks- 
giving now and evermore. 



LECTURE. 



In presenting the subject of the morning, I, as a 
spirit, ask you to remember that mankind, considered 
as a whole, has ever overlooked in the past history of 
the race much that is important, much that must 
henceforth be considered, much that is being agitated 
to-day; and among the things which have been over- 



56 WOMAN. 

looked, none so important as that of the true position 
of womankind. It is my belief, that until the race 
rises to a recognition of this, and the requirements in 
this direction, criminality, disease, the great mountains 
of imperfection and suffering, that now belong to us as 
a human family, will not, cannot, be overcome. 

I wish, first, to be understood among you this morn- 
ing, as an intelligence from the spirit side of life — a 
spiritual intelligence, who seeks the welfare of nianjdnd, 
the complete, the entire family, male and female ; not 
the development of an "ism," not the promulgation of 
some pet theory, not the maintenance of the rights 
of one, without consideration for the rights of all. In 
seeking to bring before you the wrongs of woman, in 
asking that tliey be righted, I must call your attention 
to the consideration of facts in this direction which call 
for earnest thought, for sincere research, for a willing- 
ness on the part of all to assist, in order that the race 
may be uplifted, and the best condition for all be ad- 
vanced thereby. 

It is a fact that all over the earth woman has been, 
and is yet, in a position secondary and subordinate to 
man. The why and the wherefore we must seek for in 
nature first; and here we have an illustration of the 
ever-present truth that all things work in and through 
nature, and are governed by her laws. Therefore I 
believe this state of things exists, and has existed, be- 
cause of the nature of man and woman, there being a 
preponderance of physical strength on the part of man 
which gives a corresponding preponderance of one kind 
of mental power ; and power has been, is now, and will 
be, might; and might has taken, is taking, and will 



WOMAN. 57 

take, the place of right, until wisdom, or discernment 
by the higher nature, recognizes the right from the 
standpoint of principle. When men have grown from 
the physical and intellectual up to the spiritual, then 
there will be a recognition of right from principle, 
rather than from the foundation of physical strength 
which has given the priority to man. 

In considering this subject, I ask you to lay aside 
your prejudices, if by inheritance or false education, or 
habits, you have them (and everywhere we find them, 
more or less), and then, as far as possible, put your- 
selves in sympathy with, or in the place of, your mothers. 
This is all I have to ask of you. In this tender place 
where I will then find you, I know you will be ready to 
hear the arguments and consider them, and we can 
consider them together, not as men, nor as women, but 
as one in soul and sympathy; not men and women, 
but souls seeking eternal progress. We forget this 
outer barrier of sex ; we drop off this mortal, and be- 
come souls eternal, possessors of that infinite property, 
mind ; intelligence, which under like circumstances and 
opportunities presents like attributes, whether in male 
or female, is inherited from the Infinite or Eternal. 
While we are such, divested of prejudice, forgetful of 
externals as far as that may be, then we are no longer 
fathers or mothers alone, but parts of that great Over- 
soul which contains and is both. We are parental. 
We are then of the family fraternal, and, as such, we 
seek the family's well-being. 

In the past our earth has been governed largely by 
force, might, and power. The physical developing first, 
governing as it did in the past, gave man the su~ 



58 WOMAN. 

premacy of strength. This is true not only of the male 
in the kingdom of mankind, but also of the male in the 
animal kingdom below him. Superiority of physical 
strength belongs to man as an animal. It is his in- 
heritance from nature, and until his higher nature, 
intellectual and spiritual, has widely unfolded, the ani- 
mal nature will look upon the "right" from the stand- 
point of might, or of the superiority of force and 
strength. This is forcibly illustrated still among the 
uncivilized nations of the earth. Here we see society 
in its most primitive condition. Everywhere the male 
predominating and holding supremacy, decides all ques- 
tions of social life as best suits his inclinations. In 
their system of marriage, if we may call it a system, we 
see the man of strength and might choosing according 
to his fancy from the females around him in his own 
tribe or in others ; dealing only with those who possess 
the same qualities of might and power, the fathers, or 
male possessors of the woman he chooses, and he pur- 
chases her ; or, scorning to do that even, he takes by 
main force and brute strength the maiden whom he 
covets, and she becomes his by possession, having no 
voice or choice in the matter. This rude savagery, once 
found all over the earth, is still to be found in the far- 
away islands of the sea, in parts of Africa, and in other 
portions of our earth where man has not yet grown out 
of the condition of which we have spoken, a condition 
of animalism in which might instead of intellect and 
spirituality controls him, and is the governing power. 
In other parts of the earth there has been a steady 
growth and development, yet still there are laws, cus- 
toms, and usages, whose essence or quality is that 



WOMAN. 59 

of injustice, — is the recognition of might instead of 
right. 

Long-fixed customs have, in addition to their own 
strength, that of the power of habit; and the more 
fixed these habits become, the harder they are to over- 
come. So there were many centuries of this kind of 
living before men began to conceive of a reign of law, 
liberty, truth, and justice. 

When they did, they laid the foundation of better 
laws, better systems of government, and social life ; but 
it is only slowly, through the ages, that improvements 
have been wrought. Man has been the only law-maker, 
and so the laws respecting woman, which she is com- 
pelled to submit to, are very imperfect and unjust 
where she is concerned. 

Looking through the history of the ages, we see this 
gradual improvement. Looking over our earth to-day, 
we see the great necessity for still further improve- 
ment. 

In your Spiritualism, to-day, you have, as spiritual 
mediums, influences, or spirit friends, who come to you 
from different portions of the earth. You find in your 
band of intelligences those who seek the elevation of 
womankind and the uplifting of the mothers of the 
race. There is scarcely a medium with a well-organized 
band of spirits around him, which band does not include 
such intelligences. 

I wish to speak to you this morning as a woman who 
lived in the mortal, in centuries long past. I will not 
give you the time, but I will say in the centuries of the 
past, long, long ago, I was a resident of earth, among a 
people who recognized as authority might rather than 



60 WOMAN. 

right and justice, in a land where woman is still a 
slave, the far-away, fair land you call India. Now, as 
a spirit who seeks the emancipation of woman, I have 
sought, through those who are most advanced, to reach 
those who need a helping hand ; and yet, right here in 
your own fair land of liberty of which you boast, in 
your land of freedom with its many States and Terri- 
tories, I find women in such bondage to-day, oppressed 
by such unjust laws, it would almost seem that their 
emancipation was a Utopian dream, not to be realized 
in the present time, even in this land of freedom as it 
is called, — still less to be thought of for the women of 
my own fair clime. 

We may enter, as women, your legislative halls, as 
grand, capable women of your land are entering them 
to-day, only to be scoffed at, and scorned by many who 
sit in the halls of legislation and judgment. Then, 
notice how the subject of woman is taken up by the 
Press, and, in many instances, flippantly handled, as if 
woman was something for caprice and fancy and for 
idle amusement, instead of being the foundation upon 
which homes are built, the hope of the future, as far as 
earth is concerned ; instead of being the mothers of the 
race, the wives, sisters, and daughters, to whom we 
must look in the future for the condition of morality 
which shall bring into being men and women whose in- 
heritance is purity and godliness. And while men in 
the majority of instances hold the question as idly, as 
flippantly as they do, deeming it of so little importance, 
even holding it in ridicule, they can look forward with 
but little hope ; for there can be but little advance- 
ment of the race. They must take hold of the root of 



WOMAN. 61 

the evils, that which lies at the foundation of the social 
structure, which is also the foundation and root of all 
good upon earth. 

As I have said, you find in your own land these radi- 
cal evils in the condition of woman ; and in my own 
fair land, sunny and beautiful, the land where the 
knowledge of occult and subtile science has been de- 
veloped as nowhere else on earth, there is such igno- 
rance upon this vital question, such thralldom and 
tyranny as to hold in bondage womankind, making her 
a very slave ; and it is a fact that Spiritualism teaches 
you that mankind is a brotherhood, that the human 
family is a unit; and so there can, in reality, be no 
ignoring of one nation or one people, and the building 
up or uplifting of another. No one can grow in beauty 
and symmetry unless there be a recognition of the 
rights of all and needs of all. This is as true of nations 
as it is of individuals. There cannot be a true spiritual 
growth, a true unfoldment, which you, as souls, desire, 
unless there is a recognition of the rights of all, a ren- 
dering to all what each asks for himself. 

We are glad to see that noble women are working in 
this direction. They are meeting with scorn and de- 
rision. Oftentimes they work on with heavy hearts; 
but they know there has been a little growth, a little 
advancement. In this very defeat they see cause for 
encouragement, because it is a defeat with a promise in 
it ; it is a defeat with a prophecy in it ; it is a defeat 
with the light breaking through the clouds. And this 
promise and prophecy are not for you alone. We are 
looking forward to your unborn sons ; we are looking 
forward to the time when women shall be able to give 



62 WOMAN. 

an inheritance of freedom, of justice, of equality to 
their children, when they shall stamp upon their unborn 
children such a high moral nature as will make it im- 
possible for them ever to go out into the slums of vice 
and degradation. Those who fall into those conditions, 
friends, are those who have been defrauded of their 
birthright, that which belongs to them as their divine 
inheritance. The criminals that are rilling our prisons, 
the unfortunates in our insane asylums, are what they 
are, because of their inheritance, because of the gross 
ignorance on the part of many men and women who so 
little realize, in becoming fathers and mothers, what 
they are bestowing upon their children, endowing them 
with propensities which of necessity make them subjects 
for your schools of reform, for your state prisons, com- 
pelled to become criminals because of their weakness 
and imperfection having its legitimate harvest of crime 
and corruption. 

We contend for woman's right to the ballot as the 
means to an end; that end is the righting of evils 
which exist. She proposes to use the ballot to right 
those wrongs, or to assist in so doing. That is all. 
Look for a moment at the laws of marriage, and the 
property rights of married women in this America, this 
land of liberty, whose laws are the best on the face of 
the earth. In most of the States of this Union there 
can be no release from an unhappy marriage save by 
perjury on the part of one or the other, or by a criminal 
act on the part of one or the other, which gives to them 
a chance for freedom. There is no redress save in this 
way through the laws of the land as they exist to-day. 

How often is it that girls too young and ignorant to 



WOMAN. 63 

be capable of making a wise choice enter into the close 
relationship of marriage, — often so trying to the souls 
and bodies of both women and men, a relationship 
which requires the holy ministry of the angel of love 
all the way, — only to find that they have made an 
irrevocable mistake productive of far-reaching misery ; 
yet the bonds that bind them are legal, and cannot be 
broken save by perjury or crime. While this is true, 
what does it do ? It holds in this relation many women, 
unloved and unloving wives, who still continue to, be- 
come mothers. And what kind of mothers must they 
naturally be under such conditions? What kind of 
children must naturally be brought forth ? What must 
be their inheritance ? I leave your reason to supply 
the answer. When it is answered, you will understand 
why it is that crime abounds ; why it is that so-called 
religions have no power to overcome these influences 
of evil. I say " so-called religions," because to-day sys- 
tems that are held as religions have so little of real, 
vital truth. They deal not, neither will they deal, with 
the real evils as they exist. They dare not use their 
pulpits to give expression to their bravest thoughts on 
these great questions. The minister, in many instances, 
is bound by certain laws of creedalism. His congrega- 
tion understands what these laws are ; and both know 
how far he can go without censure, and where he must 
stop. These reforms must be agitated by persons out- 
side of these fixed lines ; and as the agitation goes on, 
the more liberal in the church limits will join them. 
You remember that the anti-slavery agitation in this 
country was begun by heroes 'outside of the church, 
who were persecuted and traduced; but the thoughts 



64 WOMAN. 

to which they gave utterance, bearing so much of truth, 
were taken up by the more liberal and advanced in the 
pulpits. 

Spiritualism, as no other religion has done, has agi- 
tated this question of woman. It shows you the cause 
and the cure of crime as lying in the character of the 
motherhood of the race, more than in anything else; 
and for this, Spiritualism has been condemned; for this, 
the finger of scorn has been pointed toward it ; yet it is 
the one thing of which in the future you will be most 
proud. 

It has been beautifully said that the "hand that 
rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world." 
While this song has been accepted as a poetic idea, few 
have had a realizing sense of its truth ; few have realized 
how a mother's influence stamped upon unborn genera- 
tions, not only sways the world to-day, but reaches far 
out into the infinite future. 

And too many men there are who would like her 
to do only the cradle-rocking. At this point many a 
defender of old customs with their fixed lines stands 
entrenched. He says woman's place is in the sphere of 
home, that there should be nothing to take her atten- 
tion from it, to occupy her time .or her thoughts. All 
outside is a realm belonging to man. Man must be the 
sole maker of the laws. To enter the arena of politics 
for even an hour, long enough to cast a ballot for tem- 
perance, for social purity, for equal rights, would be 
degrading to her womanhood, bringing her down from 
the pedestal where man has placed her, as a creature to 
be worshipped and adored. This is the argument of 
our legislators. Heaven knows how few women there 



WOMAN. 65 

are who have ever received this adoration, or even 
made a footprint npon this pedestal, while the great 
majority are kept in a condition of servitude, without 
any acknowledgment of their rights as human beings, 
or as women. 

I wish I had time to go over the laws of your States 
respectively. You know how many there are in which 
a woman whose husband dies is simply his u relict " ; 
and she can simply have, during her natural life, the 
use of the property that he has left, although it may rep- 
resent their joint earnings and savings for a long period 
of years; she can simply use it, having no power to 
sell or give or bequeath it to another. This is the law, 
friends. It is true that many men, knowing how unjust 
were these laws, have made a law of their own, and 
protected her by a will ; but this is far from being uni- 
versal. Here is a single instance : A young widow 
having two small children married a second husband. 
Having very little, they worked on together, and at 
last a good farm with comfortable buildings rewarded 
their patient industry, when her husband died. During 
these years she had become the mother of three more 
children. When it came to " settling the estate " after 
his passing away, it was found that her first two chil- 
dren, who had helped to accumulate the property, were 
penniless, while she received only the widow's thirds. 
All that woman wants of the ballot is to make it 
serve the interest of justice and of right. That she 
will have it is assured because of the growth that is 
coming to all humanity, bringing a knowledge of right 
and wrong. Many a woman, until she comes to some 



bb WOMAN. 

such a point as this, does not realize the injustice that 
is inherent in the man-made laws of to-day. 

Woman has no need that man should tell her of her 
obligations to her home and family. Every true woman 
realizes them for herself far more than any man can do 
for her. She realizes the worth of a true home. She 
knows it to be the centre from which the salvation of 
the race must spring. Do you think Mrs. Livermore 
is any less a mother or less a wife, any less queen of 
her home, because of her determined effort to make 
every other woman's home as bright as the intellectual 
growth and development of such a woman can make 
it ? Do you think any women who are working in this 
direction are any less womanly ? If you think so, you 
don't know them. We have entered their homes. We 
have seen them take up the little children, and hug 
them to their hearts, with the feeling, " It is for you, 
children, that we are working, in the hope that, with 
coming generations, the evils which it is impossible to 
right now will be done away with." And I would say 
to you that the woman who thinks in the widest circle, 
who takes up all the thoughts of the day, is the noblest 
wife, the grandest mother, because she is the noblest and 
grandest woman. 

Now, I want to refer to one in your midst, one well 
known to most of you, — Mrs. Brigham. It would do 
your heart good to go into her home, to eat the food 
that comes from her hand. Everywhere in that home 
you would feel the spirit of love and liberty and ten- 
derness that permeates her entire life. Would the 
free exercise of the elective franchise make her less 
womanly ? I think not. Now, remember that woman 



WOMAN. 67 

asks for the ballot as a means to an end. She believes, 
with that in her hands there could be a reformation 
brought about. She does not say it will come as soon 
as she enters upon the work ; but she believes that her 
voice, her influence, will be on the side of right, will 
be for the uplifting of the race. 

She hopes to aid in the elevation of humanity. She 
hopes to work in this direction to help her husband, 
her father, her brother. If any of you think this would 
make her unwomanly, or would take her from her home 
duties, I want to say to you that most women have 
learned to do more than one thing at a time. They 
can keep house well, can look out for the interests of 
the home, and can vote once or twice a year, without 
infringing upon their other duties any more than voting 
does upon yours. You, as business men, can leave your 
business one or many hours, and still have it go on 
successfully. So can she. Are you any less manly be- 
cause you care for the general interests of State and 
county as well as for your own individual private in- 
terests ? If not, then she will not be less womanly for 
so doing. Are you more manly because of it? Then, 
she will be more womanly for the same reason, more 
really a helpmeet for you. It is said, in the old tradi- 
tion, that God saw it was not good for Adam to be 
alone, and so sought to make a helpmeet for him. I 
wish he had done it ! I wish he had made one whom 
man would have recognized as such, and would have 
allowed her to become a " help meet for him." I wish 
she could now take her proper position as such ! I 
wish it for the babies' sake, for the sake of the children 
yet unborn. I wish it for the good of the race, believ- 



68 WOMAN. 

ing that it would be the thing that would give you the 
greatest advancement. 

You know, mothers, how, sometimes, a little emotion, 
a little fright, leaves its physical stamp on the child. 
Let me say to you that the higher emotions leave a 
moral impress upon the child unborn; and kindness, 
tenderness, love, equality, liberty given to the mother 
as her rightful possession, enables her to bring into the 
world a son in whose nature these hold rightful su- 
premacy. These stamp themselves upon the unborn as 
surely in a spiritual sense, as surely in an intellectual 
sense, as impressions are made upon the physical tene- 
ment in which the soul dwells. As this is true, it follows 
that the most important work of the age is the uplifting 
of the mothers of mankind, the placing of them in the 
true position of equality where they rightfully belong. 

It is because we believe the ballot in the hands of 
woman would do away with many forms of evil and 
crime that exist, because it would reach the very root 
or basic principle of those evils in the way we have de- 
scribed, that I appeal to you, my brother-men, to give 
her this natural right. You can if you will. The 
question is in your hands. We believe it has been 
rather a habit carelessly indulged in than anything else 
that has led most men to regard this great question so 
lightly. Remember that every one of your voices will 
have weight and influence. No argument on the part 
of woman is going to do but very little until man yields 
the position he occupies to-day, and looks at this ques- 
tion seriously, instead of using the old senseless argu- 
ment of political influence making her unwomanly, as 
a man in the Massachusetts Legislature did the other 



WOMAN. 69 

day. A man ? Rather a fossil dug up from the ruins 
of the past, yet living in this living age of which we 
are a part. What we want is living, thinking men, 
men who are willing to put woman in her true position. 
We want this agitation continued until right prevails 
in every department of life ; until woman is paid the 
same wages for the same amount of labor equally well 
done, as are given to a man ; until it shall be merit and 
the work accomplished, rather than sex, that settles the 
rate of compensation for labor. If a woman ever be- 
comes President of the United States, I wonder if she 
would be so on half salary. I wonder if it will be the 
first time that the nation will think that there should 
be economy shown in the salary given to its President. 
I wonder if, instead of paying once, they will think she 
ought to be paid right along, pensioned, as we hear 
men saying that those who have been at the head of 
the government ought to be pensioned, agitating the 
question of pensioning Presidents because they have 
held that position, as if the men who were willing to 
serve their country in that position were rare beings, 
hard to find ! There is no true woman in the land but 
is entitled at least to the pension of liberty, justice, 
equality. We ask for equal rights for her in all places ; 
we ask the right of suffrage, we demand it ; and we are 
going to have it. 

THE BALLOT. 

We'll have it to use as a power 

In the battle for truth and right ; 
Have it because it belongs to us, 

A weapon of power and might. 



70 WOMAN. 



Have it because too long we have borne 
Our wearisome burden of wrong ; 

Because the very bearing of this 
Has unfolded a purpose strong. 

We'll have it because our children need 
The wisdom of both combined. 

Not too much, even then, will it be 
For the evils that now we rind. 

Evils of crime and intemperance 

Existing without and within ; 
For here in the " holy of holies " 

Of Motherhood cure must begin. 

Then put in the hands of the mother — 
And trust to her wisdom and love — 

The ballot, that she may assist you 
In lifting the nations above. 

Then give us a sixteenth amendment. 

We have waited patient and long, 
Till our patience is growing weaker, 

While our wills they are growing strong. 

Do we ask too much where we're asking 
Equal rights with untutored man ? 

Withhold from your wives and mothers, 
Then, longer, this right if you can. 

For shame on the men so determined ! 

Stand back, you are now in our way. 
Wives, mothers, and sisters are coming, — 

They are marching for Freedom to-day ; 

And as sure as Justice Eternal 

Ever wins in the contest for right, — 

Though patient and long they have waited, 
Their day of reward is in sight. 



REMINISCENCES OF A SPIRIT. 



>xk< 



I approach you, friends, by this means, as a Spirit 
with a few reminiscences of earth life and of the life 
which lies beyond the change called Death. Others 
may speak to you of more than this, even claiming to 
recall events in prior states of being. That we are 
eternal in our entity, I believe, or I should expect that 
which had a beginning would somewhere in the here- 
after have an end. How many of the varied experi- 
ences of an eternity I have passed through e'er reaching 
the point where memory made a record of events, hold- 
ing them where I should in my future at times recall 
them, I know not. It is not mine, and never has been, 
to recall other than events which belonged to an earthly 
pilgrimage ; and even many of these I cannot to-day 
recall in full. Others have left such an impression with 
me as a substantial part of myself. 

I shall not give in this instance much pertaining to 
my earthly life, save to say I was a man of the world, 
loved the world, was satisfied with it, had friends, many 
of them, had faults, not a few, and averaged, as I be- 
lieved, with the rest of the human family as to virtues. 
I was not a believer in religious systems to any extent, 
yet accepted the general belief of immortality until the 
later portion of my life on earth, when I became skep- 
tical in reference to this, and inclined to materialistic 



72 REMINISCENCES OF A SPIRIT. 

views. Spiritualism I had heard of, but, with the ma- 
jority, believed it was hallucination on the part of some 
and deception with others, while the rest were duped 
by both classes. Life was, in my case, much as with 
other mortals, up and down, sorrow and pleasure, suc- 
cess and defeat, alternating sufficiently at least to pre- 
vent monotony, until the cry for help was heard over 
all our land, and answered by men from every walk in 
life who went forth as preservers of our nation in its 
time of peril, when I followed as an army surgeon. I 
loved excitement, and found myself from this fact often 
in most dangerous places, escaping many times marvel- 
ously only to repeat my folly. At one time I stood in 
the midst of the battle, dead and dying so thick about 
me that my only thought was to reach them one after 
another, rendering what assistance I might. So strangely 
and often had I been preserved through such scenes that 
I became inured and fearless, with no thought of self 
as far as danger was concerned. 

Suddenly, with no sensation of warning which I can 
recall, save the din and roar of battle then in progress, 
with no particular sense of change to myself as I was 
hurriedly moving from one to another of those lying 
prone around me, I found myself standing by a form, 
vainly endeavoring to move it. I noticed its resem- 
blance to myself, and can distinctly recall my thoughts. 
" Who is this, and who could have been among us so 
strangely like myself ? Poor fellow ! whoever you are, 
you are done with life, done with battles ; and for you 
the victory is won." Soliloquizing thus, a strange sen- 
sation or influence caused me to look up. Instantly I 
saw my mother, who had been long years numbered 



REMINISCENCES OB' A SPIRIT. 73 

among the so-called dead. I thought of this, and re- 
called having heard many times of experiences in lives 
of others wherein such events had been received as 
foreshadowing danger or premonitions of some change 
awaiting them. Before I could frame any words, and 
much quicker than I can repeat this, I saw another, a 
child, a dear little one, who passed from our earthly 
home some years before. Seeing her with my mother, 
I felt that some great change awaited me. I thought 
of death. Perhaps I ere long was to meet the fate of 
the silent ones around me. I gathered strength in my 
excitement to say, " Mother, what is it ? " She answered, 
" It is death." " When ? " " Now, my son." I cannot 
tell you how. I have no sensations or recollections 
which memory leaves of this event, or how it occurred, 
only that by some means I was borne above the field of 
carnage, above its roar and din, as far as the material 
side was concerned; or, I lost the power longer to 
behold this side of the scene, and saw only the spiritual 
side of a great battle. I think this latter the better 
explanation of my condition then. 

Losing sight, in a great measure, and power of recog- 
nition of material things by the severance of the bond 
of the body which acts as a medium for this, I began 
discerning the spiritual, and was for a little while riv- 
eted to the spot by what I beheld. Directly above the 
battle-field I saw what first had the appearance of a 
cloud or mist of white. This was the spiritual ether 
which is at all times a part of earth's atmosphere, 
though only discerned by spirits. It was my first view 
of it, and my sight was dim. Gradually, as I became 
freer from material conditions, my vision grew clearer 



74 REMINISCENCES OF A SPIRIT. 

to spiritual things ; and this ether I saw full of many- 
colored forms or sparks of light, varied as the hues of 
the rainbow, and some of them brilliantly beautiful. 
At first they seemed like motes or specks of light, fill- 
ing this lake of ether, all moving, changing. There is 
nothing to which I can compare this to give you a clear 
conception. I soon saw that they tended toward cen- 
tres which at first were not visible to me'; but as the 
work went on, they became clearer and more apparent, 
dimly outlining at first and growing clearer and stronger. 

This was the work of resurrection in reality, which 
I saw to be governed by a law so perfect, atom answer- 
ing to atom, life to life, that it needed no other voice 
of God to call them to obedience. Each spark of life 
divine, by a law which governed it, sought its own 
centre, which was the conscious entity or soul which 
had during its earthly expression used these elements 
with which to clothe itself ; and now they were obedient 
to the soul as a centre of attraction, and followed where 
it led. The soul, violently thrown by the incidents of 
war from its body, arises into its native element, calling 
after by this law all that belongs to it, and must take, 
as its inheritance to the spiritual condition, the finer 
portion of what it has called unto itself during an earth 
journey. 

This law works so perfectly that there are no mis- 
takes. I received that which by my mode of living I 
had placed in the receptacle — the body. At death the 
body yielded up to me what I as an immortal being had 
intrusted to its keeping, no more and no less ; so it was 
with all. No one could appropriate at this time the 
brighter portions belonging to another, and by its greater 



REMINISCENCES OF A SPIRIT. 75 

ethereality rise upon it. But as flowers or plants grow- 
ing in one garden, each selects its own element, the 
rose, the lily, by no accident changing places, or one in 
any way robbing the other, so each soul finds its own 
element, drawn by this law unto itself; and we are 
again clothed upon. 

Above this already described I saw another still 
brighter line or cloud of light, which was the still more 
ethereal and spiritual atmosphere. In this were innu- 
merable spirits. From this source, visible to me now, 
I saw an influence was thrown upon the living, or minds 
still in the body, to assist. They appeared to direct a 
subtle power to the individual they desired to reach. 
Space to them seemed to present no obstacle, but rather 
it seemed by this distance they were in a condition 
where they could more perfectly use this power. All 
spirits cannot exercise a great power in this way, and 
these seek direct contact. In fact, the power to do this 
at a distance is attained only by experience, and is, 
therefore, practised by the more advanced minds in 
spirit life. Others moved upon the earth among the 
suffering and dying. It was indeed a cloud of wit- 
nesses. 

As nry powers of observation extended and my spir- 
itual vision grew clearer, I discerned among the many 
around me those I had known in the days of my child- 
hood, — kindred, neighbors, and friends ; some of whom 
had passed from earth long ago ; some of them with me 
had escaped the body mortal, escaped the conflict of 
battle and ills of earth, in a measure at least, in one 
short hour. 

In the midst of these scenes, and apparently without 



76 REMINISCENCES OF A SPIRIT. 

the lapse of time, or the realization of going or of trav- 
ersing space, I found myself in a beautiful place. All 
I saw I cannot here describe. I was far away from the 
scenes I had recently participated in, and in a place of 
such indescribable beauty, such ease and rest, with such 
a sense of love pervading all around me, that I find no 
language to convey to you a correct idea. With me 
were the spirits I have spoken of as first appearing to me 
upon the field of battle. I had lost sight of them in the 
interim, though I found they had not left me, as it is 
possible for the spirits who are more advanced to be- 
come visible to us who have just entered upon that life, 
or not, as they will to do. I found myself in reality 
almost as helpless in regard to the use of my new powers 
as a child new born. I learned that by a power which 
she possessed my mother had borne me thus through 
space to her home, a place of rest to my spirit. That 
as she had once received me, welcomed me, to her arms 
when I first started out on my earthly journey, so again, 
when leaving earth and time, she had gathered me in 
her embrace, and carried me to a home of rest. Here I 
saw many of our old friends, who one after another 
came to give me welcome. 

Very soon I realized a sense of uneasiness, unrest, 
even in this bright spot, as of something somewhere 
to which I still belonged, which would not allow me as 
yet to enter into this life permanently. I began inquir- 
ing, thinking, and my thoughts were of earth and of 
my recent experiences, of all I had left behind me ; and 
somehow in a way which I do not yet understand, by a 
something which must be called, I think, unconscious 
volition, by strong desire, I found myself again on earth. 



REMINISCENCES OF A SPIRIT. 77 

I have no recollections of passing from one place to the 
other, or of passing other scenes or places, only that I 
was once more upon the earth. Not this time upon the 
field of battle, where my body lay, but in my earthly 
home, where my loves awaited and attracted me, and 
where I knew the knowledge of this change would come 
as a great sorrow. I passed into the house, and found 
myself standing by my wife's side. She was reading a 
letter just received, written by me the week before, full 
of hope and expectation ; and her face was lighted with 
the hope borrowed from the letter in her hand. She 
did not know I was so near, and vainly I tried to make 
her understand it. It seems almost incredible to a spirit, 
in their earlier experiences in spirit life, when they find 
themselves so tangible, in a body so real, that they can- 
not make use of that body as a means of communica- 
tion with those yet in the mortal ; that they speak, and 
are not heard ; that they see you, and yet are unseen. 
On entering my home I saw spirits whom I had not seen 
in my mother's home. They greeted me, and smiled at 
my discomfiture, saying, " Oh, well, old fellow, you'll 
get used to this after a while ! " and offered me any 
assistance they could render. One of them, an old 
friend, took me by the hand, and led me away, saying, 
" We'll show you how you can be of service to yourself 
and others ; but first we will borrow from the old case- 
ment, the body, all it has which by nature it has not 
already given you. We will see what by intelligence 
it will yield. Then you will be ready for this other 
work." 

All I have given here occurred within a short space 
of time, a few hours. The period of rest in my mother's 



78 REMINISCENCES OF A SPIRIT. 

home was while she held over me an influence enforcing 
a condition of repose and calm to my spirit. When 
this was withdrawn, then I went forth as described. 
Accompanied by this spirit, and joined by others, we 
were soon upon the field of battle, and by my earthly 
body. How I pitied it ! I could not help it : it looked 
so pitiful. There it lay in the moonlight, under the 
shadow of night which had crept over the scene. No 
bodies had been disturbed; even of the wounded and 
suffering, yet living, but few had been cared for. Blood, 
blood, everywhere. What we had paid, answering the 
law of retributive justice, for our crime and sin of 
slavery as a nation ! It was through the blood of this 
sacrifice this sin must be atoned for. Spirits were here 
everywhere. Could you believe it, when all the mortal 
army had withdrawn ? — the victorious and the defeated 
— leaving upon the field the victims ; no longer soldiers, 
Federal or Confederate, but men, wounded, dying, and 
dead. Around them were gathered armies of angels 
who still had a work to do ; who could be kept away 
by the picket guards of no conquerors ; who came and 
went unseen until they had accomplished their work of 
soothing suffering wherever they could, and liberating 
or assisting a spirit when needed, as they were helping 
me. And this is the resurrection into the new life. By 
a power which these spirits understand, they called from 
the body that which had not by attraction been drawn 
to it, but which was entangled in material conditions, 
and which they, as chemists of the spirit, understood 
the process necessary to separate it ; and I found myself 
growing stronger by this process, also becoming pos- 
sessed with a light or knowledge, as I gained strength, 



REMINISCENCES OF A SPIRIT. 79 

of how to make use of it, so that soon I began to see I 
could govern intelligently, and by will accomplish that 
which had hitherto been done either by other spirits for 
me, or by the impulse of a strong desire. As, for in- 
stance, at death many times a spirit is seen by some 
absent friend long distances from the place where the 
spirit is leaving the body, and almost at the same instant 
they appear, and give messages concerning their death. 
This is when the thought at the time centered forcibly 
upon the person to whom they have appeared, with a 
desire, perhaps, to see them once more before death; 
and the earnestness of this desire becomes an impulse, 
bearing the spirit to this person. In a short time spirits 
learn to concentrate and govern intelligently. Then 
thought and judgment, strong will and reserve, gain 
the ascendancy rather than emotion, impulse, or strong 
desire. 

I found myself now an inhabitant of a new world. 
I found that the world of sense, as far as material things 
were concerned, was closed to me, that the spiritual was 
opened to me ; and I found myself in the possession of 
faculties, as every one does, which I was not before 
aware of possessing. I found that language was almost 
unnecessary, as all about me seemed to divine my 
thoughts and know my wishes before I could express 
them; and that, as I approached earth friends, that I 
also saw their thoughts quicker than they could have 
been expressed. I could stand by their side, and the 
mind was. as the pages of a book. I could feel even 
their sorrow, and it became my own. My anxiety for 
them was intensified until I felt it as keen suffering. 
Spirits do not become reconciled to this until wiser 



80 REMINISCENCES OF A SPIRIT. 

spirits teach them the laws of life and its uses. Then 
one becomes satisfied with the good outwrought from 
all apparent evil, and realizes that sorrow even and 
suffering are made the means in hands of infinite good 
of working out for all the greater good, and brightening 
all our capacities by the endeavors or efforts put forth. 
I found also that an influence, put forth silently and 
almost unconsciously, exercised by all in degree, could 
be exercised to such an extent that it could be made a 
means of doing good to many in ways I had never 
thought of. My family, especially, were affected by 
this means. When I found them in trouble, worn and 
too weary to sleep, my presence soothed, and passed 
them into quiet slumbers. When scarcely knowing 
what they ought to do about some matter in which they 
had ever heretofore sought my advice, I could impel 
them, not by words or direct council, but by a feel- 
ing or impulse, to do as I desired, and it was done. 
So that, although they did not know it, I became their 
counsellor and guide of life, alive in their memories 
and affections, but more alive in their acts, had they 
but known it, than ever before. 

"So, side by side, we journey through life, 
As links in a golden chain ; 
Those passing on are united still 
With the loved ones who remain." 

I found that this influence extended as physician and 
friend in the earth life. I visited the old-time friends 
and places. Wherever I could soothe a sorrow, or 
quiet a troubled one, I did it and found joy. Yes, and 
pleasure, even what is called heaven, which is happiness 



REMINISCENCES OF A SPIRIT. 81 

or peace within, by so doing. Soon also I found myself 
in the wider circle (as far as the use of these means 
are concerned) of Modern Spiritualism, and finally 
became attached as one of the number who labor with 
and through the many means to disseminate a knowl- 
edge of what life really is on the other side, among 
those who still journey upon the earthly plane, that 
more rational views may take the place of the dark- 
ness and obscurity which have hitherto veiled the life 
beyond. 

That it is a life of realities and varied, instead of 
ceaseless harp-playing and chanting hallelujahs, I need 
not tell you. We follow a great variety of occupations 
here, according to the life we live, as you do. Of the 
work which I have chosen upon the earth I have spoken, 
or of a part of it. Now I must refer briefly to that 
which belongs to our side of life. For every kind of 
work there are those especially gifted, or especially 
prepared by nature, and according to their fitness or 
adaptation. My work in spirit life is still that of the 
physician. There are physicians who carry hope, cheer, 
spiritual insight, and magnetic force. If these are their 
endowments, then nature has called them to their work. 
Fortunately I was so organized as to possess this power, 
which in an invisible way soothed my family and friends 
after my departure from earth life, and which led me 
also to take up the same work on this side of life. 
There are many spirits who are exactly the opposite 
of this. If they approach an individual in the mortal, 
there is restlessness and nervousness ; and many times 
disease follows, if they remain long enough. 

These must be directed, instructed, harmonized, 



82 REMINISCENCES OF A SPIRIT. 

before they can benefit mankind. All who arise from 
the earth who have not been tanght how to live wisely 
come in a state requiring more or less assistance, 
strength, and what might almost be termed recon- 
structing, to attune them to the conditions necessary 
for the enjoyment of the higher spheres of spirit life. 
There are some who have led such lives on earth, of 
impurity of body and mind, that they are veritable 
lepers of spirit, spotted and stained by the grossly 
impure lives which they have led. Such as these are 
spiritually diseased, in the fullest sense of the word. 
They have brought with them the spiritual part of the 
gross material, with which they have by false habits of 
life continually supplied the body. And while the two 
bodies, that of spirit the finer covering, and that of 
matter the external covering, are united, one must 
necessarily partake of and be affected by the other. 
The spiritual or astral body is fed by the spiritual part 
of that which is given to supply the other, and re- 
ceives its taints or impression left upon by impurity of 
thought and action. This must be overcome, sometimes 
by growth, and sometimes by the kindly assistance of 
others. Those who work in this direction among spirits, 
showing them how to correct their faults, inspiring hope 
and trust, impelling them to action, and also removing 
at times chemically their impurities, are spiritual heal- 
ers ; and bands of these are continually at work among 
this class of spirits, and meeting those who are just 
leaving their bodies. This resurrection -and healing- 
work is also accomplished through the aid of mortals 
who are approached by these bands, and made use of as 
reservoirs of material force, which is necessary in this 



REMINISCENCES OF A SPIRIT. 83 

work. Much of this is done when the individual so 
employed by spirit agents is entirely ignorant in regard 
to it, as it is done by spirits who use their chemical 
properties rather than their intellectual faculties, while 
there are others who are well aware of the work they 
are doing, and are quite often termed cranks if they 
make known the fact that they do such a work. 

Nature's methods of saving her children from the 
hells in which through their ignorance many times they 
find themselves are often misunderstood by children of 
earth ; but they are always effective, and sooner or later 
extricate us from the slough of despond where the giant 
Ignorance has left us. 

In these reminiscences I have given but a glimpse of 
the world we now live in. I do not give it to establish 
any identity, or to say who I am, other than a brother- 
man, one who lived as you live, and has passed from 
the mortal body, and still lives, who stands by the side 
of the visible form that responds to my thoughts, and 
yet who is unseen, as are many others in your midst. 

Had I time, I should like to speak of the world of 
spirit more fully, of its realities, its varied avocations. 
This you have had, and will have from other returning 
pilgrims who have made this journey. We live; this is 
finally established. The way of communication is now 
open. Our inheritance is life, immortality, and eternal 
blessedness, with the grand law of eternal progress to 
aid us in overcoming our infirmities, while the vast 
universe is ours as the field where we may gather wis- 
dom. Truth and love are the ruling powers or princi- 
ples. By these we expect to see the triumph over error, 
and at last our race redeemed, not by belief, but by the 



84 REMINISCENCES OF A SPIRIT. 

acceptance cf a knowledge which saves from the con- 
sequences of sin and evil, by saving from the perpetra- 
tion of evil and from wrong-doing. May all good 
impulses be cherished within you, and these and good 
angels lead you ever into the Light. 



REUNION AT GETTYSBURG. 



>>«Xc 



A dispatch dated July 4th to a Philadelphia paper 
a few years since gave the following brief memoranda 
of a celebration upon the historic grounds of Gettys- 
burg, of the anniversary of American Independence, 
participated in with equal enthusiasm and fraternal 
feeling by soldiers from the North and South ; on which 
occasion Mrs. Pickett, widow of the general who led 
the Confederates at the battle in 1863, held a reception 
and gave an ovation. 

" Just as the clock in the tower of the County Court 
House last night sounded the first stroke of twelve, the 
midnight stillness was broken by the strains from a bugle 
of 'Way down upon the Suwanee River.' Scarcely 
had its notes died away when the members of the Phil- 
adelphia Brigade and Pickett's Division began the cele- 
bration of the glorious Fourth with the booming of 
cannon on East Cemetery Hill and the explosion of 
fire-crackers in the town. Pandemonium reigned for 
one hour and a half. No such noise has disturbed this 
little village since the three memorable days of '63. 
Not only the citizens took part in the celebration, but 
those who wore the gray as well. They joined in the 
festivities with a zest equal to any, and showed, as 
Judge William J. Clopton, of Richmond, a prominent 
member of Pickett's Division, said, 'that we of the 



86 REUNION AT GETTYSBURG. 

South take equal joy in the observance of the day with 
our brethren of the North. No one at Gettysburg to- 
day can forget the scenes connected with this anniver- 
sary of the birthday of freedom, binding still closer in 
the bonds of union two great states, Virginia and Penn- 
sylvania, as well as drawing still tighter the cords which, 
through scenes like these, are bringing about a complete 
and lasting peace and union of our country.' " 

Reading the above, my spirit guide gave me the follow- 
ing lines which, I feel, can appropriately follow the pre- 
ceding reminiscence of one who passed to the higher life 
under the circumstances which he has described, on the 
pages immediately preceding. 

POEM. 

Go forth, O messenger of peace, 

Go forth f orevermore, 
Till war shall cease upon our earth, 

And conflicts shall be o'er ; 
Until at last all arbiters 

Shall stand upon the height 
Where these now stand and view at last 

The victory of Right. 

For hand to hand and heart to heart, 

Most loyal are they now, — . 
The conquered and the conqueror, — 

With peace upon each brow. 
What strange emotions well may fill 

The hearts that meet to-day ; 
Remnants of two great armies, 

The nation's blue and gray. 

As children of one family 
Will often disagree, 



REUNION AT GETTYSBURG. 87 

Even so was it one day with these 

Children of liberty. 
And wisely overruling all, 

As loving parents will, 
Right and Justice stepped between 

With the command, Be Still ! 

From the first sound on Sumter's height, 

Throughout the nation's storm, 
We little knew that in those hours 

A nation should be born ; 
That from the fields of Gettysburg 

And Richmond there should be, 
Rising as from the blood-stained earth, 

A nation truly free. 

Four million shackles broken from 

As many bruised hands ; 
Hushed, silenced, and with bleeding hearts, 

A bruised nation stands. 
Be hushed, our anxious questionings; 

Be stilled, each fear and doubt ; 
Through all these dreadful evils 

Life's problem is worked out. 

We know not its beginning, 

We cannot know its end, 
We but watch the lights and shadows 

That slowly interblend. 
As Time's hand slowly changes 

Dark threads to golden hue, 
Nations and men all in good time 

Shall each receive their due. 

We are standing on the summit 

Of the Mount of Peace to-day, 
And we celebrate our freedom 

In a truly loyal way ; 



88 REUNION AT GETTYSBURG. 

For the North and South are meeting 
As brother meets a brother — 

Their leader, for the day, at least, 
A Woman and a Mother. 

And the remnants of these armies 

Fall in line at her command, 
With love her only weapon, while 

She grasps each loyal hand. 
They stand upon the very sj)ot 

Where they have stood before, 
And almost fancy they're again 

Amid the battle's roar. 

He who on that eventful day 

Called his brave men to rally, 
Has stacked his arms, heard the command 

To "pass death's silent valley." 
And all the land we love so well, 

Peace holds as her dominions, 
W'hile Slavery, " foul bird of prey," 

Lies low with folded pinions. 

His talons still are fixed upon 

The laborer and woman, 
So strong his predilection is 

To cling to something human ; 
But as surely as his clutches 

Were from the black man freed, 
So in the time now drawing near, 

All shall be free indeed. 

Through bloody seas it maybe, 
We'll walk to freedom's height ; 

But surely as the truth prevails, 
Wrong shall give place to right. 

Woman shall stand beside her lord 
Acknowledged equal there, 



REUNION AT GETTYSBURG. 89 

Her voice heard in the nation, 
Its weal or woe to share. 

The struggle that with capital 

And labor now is pending 
Till Justice rules and Right prevails 

Will never see an ending. 
The wheels of progress slowly move ; 

But with a strong endeavor, 
They're grinding out our destiny, 

Forever and forever. 



OUR PLACE AMONG THE RELIGIONS OF 
THE WORLD. 

Discourse delivered before the Boston Spiritual Temple 
Society — Meeting in Berkeley Hall. 

<~*®4o<»_ — 

Our thought this morning will dwell upon these 
words: "Our Place among the Religions of the 
World." I know that some are ready to say that Spir- 
itualism is not a religion. This is because they have 
become satiated with what has been given them in its 
name in the past, in which so much of error has been 
embodied. They have been compelled to accept so 
much that is erroneous that the mind has, at last, deter- 
mined to cut loose therefrom. 

We must look at the facts just as they are. One of 
the most important of these is that man, by nature, is 
inclined toward religion. That he has been so in the 
past, history abundantly proves. That he is so in the 
present, earth's numberless systems of religion fully 
demonstrate. Since he is by nature a religious being, 
he is by nature a spiritual being, allied therefore to the 
infinite, eternal soul of all things. As such, permanent 
in his essence and substance, his thought must necessa- 
rily dwell upon the permanent and abiding. That leads 
him always to the consideration of a future state of 
being. 



RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 91 

This state of existence is fleeting for all of us. Those 
who live to attain a hundred years of age upon this 
earthly plane are looked upon as marvels. People will 
often go a long distance to see a human being who has 
battled with the storms of earthly life for such a length 
of time. In the traditionary history of mankind, writ- 
ten upon pages deemed sacred, we are told that man, 
at one time, attained the age of five, six, seven, eight 
hundred years, and that he has gradually lost his power 
of life upon this plane of being ; but evidence of this 
remarkable longevity of the human race is nowhere to 
be found; therefore we class this extraordinary story 
with many of the myths of the past, the outgrowth of 
man's imperfect development. Further on we read 
that the measure of man's life is three-score years and 
ten. In reality we know that very few of the human 
beings who are born attain even that age, a vast pro- 
portion passing away in their infancy. So there is 
something upon this mortal plane of being with which 
we must ever contend, something that weighs upon our 
lives with mighty power. This something is the strug- 
gle of the spirit with matter, and through matter, to 
express its higher and better self, which has not as yet 
found a perfect condition for its higher expression. 
This we know to-day is because our earth is young. 
We used to think it was old, but we know now that it 
has not.yet attained its majority. When it has attained 
to this, we shall see man possessed of such mastery over 
matter as will enable him, in a great measure, to control 
the length of his sojourn here, and bid defiance to the 
approach of death, save as it approaches him as an obe- 
dient servant to unlock the doors of the tomb, his bodv, 



92 OUR PLACE AMONG THE 

after it has served the purpose of the soul, and give 
him emancipation. 

As we find ourselves possessed of a higher nature 
which we call soul-nature, we find ourselves akin to the 
life-force, or power, which men have always worshiped 
in one form or another as God. We find ourselves akin 
to this, inheriting qualities which make us children of 
the living God and heirs of eternal life — life reaching 
out beyond that change which man has so dreaded in 
the past, that change of which he has known so little, 
save to feel the terror of its power. We find ourselves, 
by the power of soul within us, akin to the eternal prop- 
erty, or substance of life. Now, we call this God. I 
know no better name for it. The embodiment of this 
life-power, which we believe to be eternal in substance 
and essence, is all that I know of God, and it is God to 
me wherever I behold it: in the face of man, in the 
budding flower, in the world you live upon, in the 
higher spheres of being, in the immensity of space 
filled with worlds, peopled with forms of life corre- 
sponding to the conditions that have evolved them. 

When we take this fact into consideration, we realize 
the magnitude of this universe of which we are parts, 
and realize as well how small we are in comparison 
with the infinite whole, yet we are parts of the eternal 
essence of life, and we find ourselves moving on in the 
eternal round of change which attends the evolution of 
spirit through matter. That man is such a creature, 
that he is possessed of this kinship with the eternal 
essence of power, this soul of life that cannot die, has 
been the cause of all religions ; and all there is of error 
in any religious system is there because man, as a spirit, 



RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 93 

cannot yet see clearly through this veil of the material 
in which he is still enveloped. These errors exist be- 
cause he is undeveloped and imperfect; because the 
higher chambers of his brain are not yet taken posses- 
sion of by the higher forms of thought, which will ena- 
ble him to walk with God as some have done in the 
ages of the past when following their highest inspira- 
tion. It may have been Mahomet in the desert, the 
Buddha in the palm groves of India, or one of the lat- 
ter-day saints — it is one and the same thing. A man, 
in his higher condition, walks in the higher and nobler 
law of life, and what is this but walking with God? 

The great founders of all religious systems gave 
expression to what was within them, and those expres- 
sions, as they are accepted, mark the stepping-stones 
of man's advancement. This degree of unfoldment is 
indicated by his ideas of what God is, what life is, what 
are the attributes of God, and what is demanded of the 
children of earth. To-day we find men teaching that 
God is a God of anger ; that in creating things he makes 
mistakes; that he regrets these mistakes, and vainly 
looks about for means to remedy them. So great is his 
anger toward the children of his own creation, they 
may not even implore his forgiveness save through a 
mediator. Through the mercy and kindness of this 
mediator we may approach the great frowning Deity 
so as to find forgiveness for sins we have never com- 
mitted, and for wrongs we never meant to do, and 
which, if the organization he has given us impelled us 
to do it only proves that we have been victims of his 
own divine mistakes. 

Contrast with this the teaching of Spiritualism in its 



94 OUR PLACE AMONG THE 

thought of that eternal power of life which we call 
God, which says that there are no mistakes in this uni- 
verse, that everything is growing upward to a higher 
standard. As well may we expect the tiny bud of the 
springtime to present us with autumn's ripened fruitage 
as to expect perfection in man's development in this 
early age of the world. Man is a creature governed 
by laws universal, which govern all forms of matter. 
He is a creature of growth, and by and through the 
growth of these outer conditions, these outer expres- 
sions, does he become capable of expressing the soul 
within ; just as these flowers are what they are to-day, 
because the tiny life-germ within the seed found outer 
conditions that permitted it to expand, and finally to 
express itself in the forms of beauty you see before you. 
It took time to do this, and time, time long enough will 
accomplish all things. 

Thus, through all the ages of the past we find in man 
the tiny soul of being wrapped up in germinal condi- 
tions within the outer forms of matter. It was infused 
with the eternal principle of life, but it has taken God's 
ages, nature's ages, to bring it even to its present degree 
of unfoldment. But it is budding, it is blooming, it is 
promising a rich harvest for the future. Something of 
what this harvest is to be is already beginning to be 
shown in the higher and nobler specimens of humanity, 
the gifted ones of earth, as they are called. These more 
perfected blossoms upon the tree of life are only speci- 
mens of what the others are to be, when all the time, 
all the conditions necessary for their development, have 
been given them. 

Thus, then, we take our place as the first religion of 



RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 95 

the earth to answer the all-important question, " What 
are we after death ? " While preceding religious sys- 
tems (some of them) have taught faith and hope, we 
have taught what is better than faith and brighter than 
hope, assurance. We offer positive assurance that life 
is continuous, that individuality is preserved ; we offer 
it from the testimony of thousands who have traveled 
across the dark valley, have passed over the silent 
stream called death, and returned again ; having pre- 
served identity, individuality, personality ; returned to 
bring tidings of that country from which it is often 
said, " no traveler returns." Job did not know of it ; 
David did not sing of it ; Solomon scarcely dreamed of 
it. No religious system of the past or present can com- 
pare with ours, answering, as it does, to the deepest 
nature of man, reaching as high as the highest heaven, 
as low as the lowest hell ; lifting souls from even the 
lowest condition and teaching them that they may finally 
aspire to the highest. Our religion teaches us that we 
are all children of the living God — none reprobate, 
none castaways. 

This is the Christian Sabbath. How blue the heavens 
and how bright the sunshine ! How glad the songs of 
rejoicing that are pealing forth to-day ! And what is 
the refrain? It is "Christ is risen." Now we can tell 
you that your loved ones are risen also. We have come 
to tell you that your mother, your father, your sister, 
your brother, your child, your friend, have risen as well, 
and because they live you shall live also. We have 
come to tell you that life is so victorious over death 
that not alone is Joseph's tomb in far-away Palestine 
broken and rent asunder, but every tomb in every land 



96 OUR PLACE AMONG THE 

has given up its dead; that there are no dead — that 
all are living. Is not that cause for rejoicing? 

Christianity says, If yon accept "the plan of salva- 
tion," if you believe all these dogmas, you shall have 
part in the resurrection of life ; but if your reason pre- 
vents your believing them, then will your resurrection 
be a resurrection to death eternal. Now, friends, there 
are no such discordant notes as those in our Easter 
music. Our heaven-inspired harmonies proclaim that 
all are risen, that all have life eternal by virtue of their 
divine inheritance as children of life, that there is no 
power in the universe that can rob them of this life. 
They sing that death is only a change that leads on and 
on, through the passage-ways of life eternal. Then 
may we not call our philosophy, our science of life, a 
religion ? Does it not appeal to all that is highest and 
best in the nature of man, and provide means for its 
development ? Oh ! yes, it is a religion, and one that 
has come to correct the errors of old systems of theology. 
This is the work of Spiritualism to-day. 

Now, some one may say, if this is true, I shall know 
it some time. What difference does it make about my 
finding it out now ? It makes all the difference between 
truth and error, and that is infinite. It makes all the 
difference it would make to your child if you allowed 
him to spend his childhood and youth in accumulating 
a stock of erroneous statements and opinions, which he 
would be obliged to unlearn before he could begin the 
career of his manhood. Human life is full of meaning. 
In it I see the embodiment of a purpose. We are here to 
accomplish something — there is something for us to do. 
We are not here to sit idle with folded hands. What 



RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 97 

is the purpose of life? I answer, briefly, the unfold- 
ment of the higher powers of the soul. If you are not 
better thinkers, better doers than you were one week 
ago, then that week has been wasted. And we must 
remember that what a soul does not accomplish in one 
pilgrimage, it will be compelled to in another. Some 
one says, " That is re-incarnation." Call it what you 
like, I call it eternal truth. What the soul does not 
accomplish for its needs in one earthly pilgrimage it 
will in another. That is why, unseen, I am here before 
you this morning, giving expression to my thought 
through the physical organism of another. Had I ac- 
complished all my soul's mission, as far as earth is con- 
cerned, I should now be in the sphere of souls arisen 
that do not come in contact with your earth's atmos- 
phere. What I did not accomplish in life yesterday, 
I am laboring hard to accomplish to-day. 

Spiritualism has come to you to-day because Bibles 
are not complete. Living pages are to be written in 
them penned by those who, in the ages of the past, have 
failed to express through the material world the higher, 
better soul-nature of man. Spiritualism is here because 
the grosser, baser forms of true religion have been em- 
bodied in these systems ; because erroneous theological 
dogmas have taken the place of the spirituality that 
was found in the Church in its early ages. " The gifts 
of the Spirit," enjoined by the apostle in those early 
days, have been forgotten by the Church, until the Pen- 
tecost of the past is known no more among them — 
until the tongues of fire which rested upon those who 
spoke as the Spirit gave them utterance are forgotten. 
Spiritualism, nineteen hundred years ago, had power 



98 OUR PLACE AMONG THE 

over the people. When kings and emperors began to 
try to manipulate this power, to institute their orders 
of priesthood upon it, it fled from their selfish grasp, 
leaving only the dead body of material forms and obser- 
vances. Spiritualism has come to infuse life into the 
dead religions of the world. It is going to change and 
fashion them until much of what now is will necessarily 
be swept away for something stronger, higher, better, 
to come in. It has come like one of old, who said, " I 
come not to bring peace on earth, but a sword." This 
has been the power of truth from that day to this. 
Whosoever speaks forcibly, truthfully, against the pre- 
vailing customs of the times, is a disturber of the peace. 
Spiritualism has come with the sword of truth in its 
hand, and it will cut its way through the dark ranks of 
error and superstition, and show you the " king's high- 
way" whereon, at last, all souls shall safely walk. 

With every soul saved, with every child born a mem- 
ber of the church of the future, — as they are going to 
be, — there will be a universal church of humanity which 
will recognize the divinity in man. Every child of 
earth will know he is also a child of the living God, 
destined to live forevermore. Spiritualism has come 
like a John the Baptist in the wilderness of ignorance 
and error, to declare the kingdom of heaven that is at 
hand. It has come as the torch-bearer of the nineteenth 
century, lighting the gloom of the grave with the glory 
of immortality. Some will say, " This is the egotism of 
the despicable body of Spiritualists. They are possessed 
of a devil, they are ruled by the Prince of Devils." Just 
so they said of the torch-bearers of the past, whom they 
persecuted even unto death. Spiritualism has come to 



RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 99 

lay the corner-stone of edifices where thought, intelli- 
gence, poetry, music, art, shall be promoted and ele- 
vated, not for selfish purposes, not for the uplifting of 
a single branch of religion, but for all humanity. This 
is what it has come for, the uplifting of all that is 
grand, noble, and beautiful in human life. It has come 
to make us feel that every child of earth is our brother 
or our sister, that we all belong to the same family. You 
look out upon the human races, you see men as black 
as night, and low down in the scale of intelligence. 
You call them savage, and so they are, and yet they are 
yuur younger brothers, and by and by, by means of the 
divine possibilities wrapped up in the soul-germ, they 
are going to be all that you are ; yes, and much more, 
when they have had time enough. By and by you can 
extend to them the hand of fellowship and not be 
ashamed. If you think this is not so, when you are a 
few million years older than you are now I will meet 
you somewhere and say, as we look upon their devel- 
oped condition, "Didn't I tell you so?" Out in the 
limitless future what is not yet accomplished for earth- 
children will be sometime, somewhere, and we shall 
live to behold it. Now we do the best work we can, 
and then we sit down and wish it had been better, and 
we feel something rising up within us which if we could 
have given expression to would have made our work 
better. In the future I know that I shall rise to a con- 
dition in which I can express the highest that I now 
feel uprising within me, and so shall it be with you all. 
You have not heard a thought this morning but a greater 
one rises up within you, only you cannot speak it. Well, 
you will tell it by and by to somebody. This is the 



100 OUR PLACE AMONG THE 

soul's power, and it shall be developed in God's time, 
in nature's time. 

Can you think of the old-time heaven described to 
you in your childhood, and then sing " Heaven is my 
Home," without feeling that you would be homesick in 
such a heaven ? In the place of this, Spiritualism tells 
you that you are going to have a home, a natural home, 
where the loved ones gone before will enfold you in 
their tender embraces, and your soul shall be satisfied. 
It tells you that death is a friend, who will lead you to 
this. You may not see the forty and four thousand 
perfect men, standing about the throne of God, nor 
those wonderful animals, nor those mystical rivers, but 
you will find something infinitely better, — home, a 
home like this of earth, only with fairer skies and 
greener fields, with sweeter flowers and purer streams. 
It will be our home. Do you say this is too material ? 
Why, what are these flowers, but spirit manifesting 
itself in form ? Is there anything unreasonable in the 
statement of facts? Facts are stubborn things, and 
I tell you this fact : That world is a natural one, as 
natural to the soul of man as this world is to his body ; 
yes, and more so, because it is higher, it is more devel- 
oped. 

But somebody~asks, " What are you going to do with 
all the wicked ? " Going to take care of them, just as 
you ought to have done before you hung them ; going 
to water them with the dew of sympathy, to warm them 
with the sunlight of love, to quicken them with the 
penetrating power of truth, until in the place of the 
desert waste will appear the fruitful garden, and their 
lives shall bud and blossom, and bear full harvests of 



RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. 101 

good. Instead of sending them to hell we are going to 
send them to school, and we are going to have good 
teachers for them. They will be under the law of love, 
but it will be discipline as well, and the discipline will 
be a process of education. Then we have to take care 
of the babies you do not know how to bring up. Doesn't 
it need a natural world for this ? You cannot find any- 
thing between the two lids of the Bible that tells you 
whether the little soul whose life-boat floated away 
upon eternity's ocean before it. had hardly touched the 
river of time, ever becomes anything but a blank page 
or not. 

Spiritualism comes to tell you that Nature, who has 
taken your babe from you, knows how to care for it. 
You did not. You loved it well enough, but you did 
not understand its organism. You did not know how 
to live while you were clothing it with the mantle of 
your being ; you did not know how to give this little 
soul the right kind of a starting-place, and so it broke 
from its moorings and drifted away. We have taken 
it up; we have cared for it and educated it. Such 
souls I see standing beside some of you this morning. 
They say, "I passed from earth a babe. This is my 
mother. She does not know I am a man, or a woman. 
Why? Because no religion ever taught it." These 
souls say: "I am waiting for my mother. She does 
not know me, but I shall be sure to know her, for I 
have been brought to see her every day since I went 
away, and when she comes, I shall introduce myself and 
make my claims." Did that message ever come to 
earth before ? I answer : Never, until it was brought 
to you by Modern Spiritualism. 



102 OUR PLACE AMONG. RELIGIONS. 

Yes, Spiritualism is a religion, and it will sweep on 
and on, cheering and uplifting the millions who, weighed 
down by care and woe, know not the future holds for 
them an answer to all their soul's requirements ; that 
it will bring them out into the glad sunshine of the life 
eternal ! 



MODERN SPIRITUALISM: ITS PLAN AND 
PURPOSE. 

A Discourse delivered before the Boston Spiritual Temple 
Society — Meeting in Berkeley Hall. 

We have said that Spiritualism has a place among 
the religions of the earth. Now we ask, What is the 
labor it has come to perform? — believing that man 
needs assistance and direction ; that there are many 
errors to be corrected ; that there are many pitfalls in 
the pathway of life that have proven to be stumbling- 
blocks in the pathway of progress. Many of these 
stumbling-blocks have been held as idols. It is hard 
for mankind to cut loose from these idols of the past, 
surrounded, as many of them are, by tender memories 
and associations. The man looks back to his childhood, 
and he sees his father and mother taking a book which, 
in all the sincerity and devotion of their hearts, they 
told him was the word of the living God ; putting this 
book into his hands and sending him forth into the 
world, believing they had given him the only infallible 
guide to salvation that the world contained. He says, 
" That book was good enough for my good old father 
and mother — it is good enough for me." It is hard to 
break away the shell of conservatism in which he wraps 
himself like a mantle. But it was in the home of such 



104 



MODERN SPIRITUALISM : 



that Modern Spiritualism first made its appearance, 
working through the child mediums of that home. You 
know how those parents knelt in prayer and besought 
God to remove the curse (as they felt it to be) from 
them. This work, then, was carried on in the home of 
prayerful believers in a religious system, to which they 
clung as earnestly as any among you to-day cling to the 
old-time theology that your parents taught you. Still 
that mighty power kept on as persistently as though it 
had work to do ; as though it knew that the old-time 
associations, tender as they were, must be set aside that 
greater blessings might come to man — the blessings 
which the powers around and about him felt that he 
most needed. The world of spirit came in mighty 
power to that humble home, bringing the manifestations 
of their presence that we have since witnessed. 

Fancy, for a moment, what must be the happiness of 
the human spirit emancipated from the bondage of the 
flesh. Can you think what that form of life is of which 
one of old said, " Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, 
neither hath it entered into the heart of man to con- 
ceive " of its glories ? Yet these emancipated beings in 
their heavenly homes saw the needs of mankind, and 
they willingly left their mansions of light and journeyed 
earthward for the purpose of blessing humanity, and 
they began their work in earnest. Matter was handled 
in such a way that scientists were compelled to ac- 
knowledge that the law of gravitation was suspended 
or overcome by the action of a power of which they 
were entirely ignorant. Matter, no longer subject to 
the law of gravitation, seemed itself possessed of life 
and spirit, so perfectly did it respond to demands of the 



ITS PLAN AND PURPOSE. 105 

unseen intelligences who controlled it. Scientists saw 
this power and knew not what to name it. 

Theologians, even of to-day, say, " It is foolish to talk 
of spirits moving tables, making sounds, operating upon 
matter, entering a home and turning over things gen- 
erally, belittling themselves to such an extent." Why, 
friends, do you never think that God is constantly ex- 
pressing himself through matter? What are all the 
sights and sounds of the physical universe but the 
operation of spirit upon matter ? 

Now we ask, " What did the spirits come to Hydes- 
ville for ? " Did they come simply to rouse the idle 
curiosity of the denizens of earth? Not at all. They 
came because there was need of their coming ; because 
there were lessons to be taught that would enable men 
to live their lives aright. Their first work was to make 
humanity understand the possibility of intelligent inter- 
course between the two worlds ; and, then, with knowl- 
edge, would come a realization that they could tell of 
the life beyond, so little known to dwellers in this 
material body. Not only did they bring a knowledge 
of immortality to the soul of man, but they brought 
healing to his body, healing diseases as no mortal physi- 
cians have ever been able to do. Jesus was a healer. 
Through the advent of Modern Spiritualism there has 
been a quickening of this old-time power ; and not only 
does it remove disease, but it tells you what to eat, 
what to drink, how to order your lives in a way to pro- 
mote the highest health of body and mind, and thus 
make it possible for future generations to be born in a 
more perfected stage of being. It teaches the science 
of life physical, as well as spiritual, and you learn to 



106 MODERN SPIRITUALISM: 

know that, unless the body, which is the temple of the 
living God, is kept pure and undefiled, the spirit im- 
prisoned therein cannot rise above the low level of 
gross habits and desires that bind it. You know that 
until you can regulate your own lives in a way to 
express only your higher, better selves, you cannot 
give your children the birthright that belongs to them ? 
How is this work to be accomplished? We answer: 
largely through the school of mediumship. Medium- 
ship is an educational institution for the transmission 
of knowledge from the higher spheres ; it is the open 
door between those realms and your own, through 
which wisdom may descend to you. As a class, the 
mediums themselves are elevated by their mediumship. 
There may be some weak vessels among them, some 
whose naturally unbalanced condition partially unfits 
them for their work, — wholly unfits them, as indi- 
viduals, to be models for you to follow, — yet, even 
through them, a work is done ; if not for man, then for 
undeveloped spirits out of the body ; and such medium- 
ship as that, even, is a part of the universal plan of 
life. 

These weak vessels are they who have not received 
from their ancestors the birthright of which we have 
spoken. By and by men are going to be born with 
brains fitted to grasp any problem, with an organism 
that seeks right methods of life as naturally as the 
plant seeks the light. 

The time is not far distant when what is now known 
as public mediumship will, in a great measure, be done 
away with. Why ? Because of the unfoldment of 
spiritual power in your own homes, your own lives. 



ITS PLAN AND PURPOSE. 107 

Children will be born clairvoyant, clairandient. There 
will be child-mediums in every home, coming more 
and more as humanity advances. Thus will this world 
of yours be brought into full communion with the spirit- 
world. I would not speak in terms that seem lacking 
in respect for public mediums ; but when every soul is 
an altar for the fire of. the spirit, when every home is a 
church, every father, mother and child a member there- 
of, where will be the necessity' for the public address 
which to-day forms a vital part of the work. 

The work of Spiritualism is without limit. We have 
crime to deal with, and the world has had it to deal 
with always. Our religion teaches that every soul must 
pay the penalty of his own transgressions — nobody is 
going to do it for him. If he sin he must bear the 
consequences — there is no shirking them; and it is 
also true that the sins and mistakes of the parents leave 
their impress upon the children. Why, all of you can 
look back and say, "I inherited this form of body, this 
habit of thought, from my mother, my father, or some 
more remote ancestors." You can see that you are 
more what you were born than what you were educated 
to be ; and so we say the way to remove crime is to 
cease to bring into the world children so imperfectly 
organized that they can hardly fail to fall before the 
first strong temptation. I believe that crime is going 
to be banished from the earth, because I believe — I 
know — there is coming to man an understanding of 
what the soul is, what the spirit is, what eternal life 
means. Then he will live wisely, as one who lives for 
eternity instead of the sensuous pleasures of a few brief 
years. Spiritualism teaches you that the consequences 



108 MODERN SPIRITUALISM: 

of all your sins follow you into the life beyond. They 
are not washed away nor forgiven. You will have to 
stand face to face with your conscience, your higher 
self, and meet the condemnation of your own soul. 
What is the remedy ? Why, this condition can be out- 
lived and overcome by a life of integrity and purity, 
and conditions for such a life are going to be given you. 
When, under these conditions, you have earned rest 
and peace and joy, they will all be yours. Will not a 
full understanding, a thorough realization of this truth, 
stimulate men to put away evil from their earthly life, 
and to strive to rise to a nobler plane of thought and 
action ? 

It is the work of Spiritualism to overcome mental as 
well as physical diseases. It brings a power that will 
penetrate even the brick walls of the great lunatic 
asylums all over the land, filled with thousands of poor 
sufferers, whose misery only the pitying hearts of angels 
can fully understand. What affliction more terrible 
than insanity ! A human being whose soul is held in 
bondage by its attachment to the body from which it 
cannot break away ; the body whose nervous system, all 
unstrung, like the strings of a piano if they were hope- 
lessly broken and tangled, can express the soul within 
only by discordant and agonizing sounds, is the saddest 
sight in the universe ; and to this class, Spiritualism, 
and that alone, can bring a perfect cure, for it comes to 
enlighten and uplift the insane world of spirits, as well 
as mortals, to help the undeveloped souls who, having 
dropped their own material form, yet linger here, bring- 
ing their burdens to add to those, already too heavy, of 
sufferers in the mortal form. 



ITS PLAN AND PURPOSE. 109 

All the years of his public mediumship, Jesus was 
busy dealing with undeveloped spirits that came too 
near the earthly plane, and so afflicted mortal sensi- 
tives. Somebody says : " This doctrine of the evil in- 
fluence of undeveloped spirits is a terrible doctrine." 
Well, it is true. As we have said before, what a soul 
does not accomplish in one earthly pilgrimage it must 
in another, and that soul must begin where it left off, 
no matter how low down in the scale of life that may 
be. Such being the fact, such results as we see must 
follow. 

Let Spiritualists have an understanding of this, and 
be willing to work even for the spirits in prison, and 
much of the cause of insanity and crime will be re- 
moved from earth. This work of removing crime and 
disease from the earth will take time. There are lessons 
to be taught ; there are systems of labor to be evolved ; 
but it will be done. Spiritualism has also come to do a 
work for woman, which no system of religion has yet 
done. Christianity has done more than any that pre- 
ceded it, but it says, "If a woman wants knowledge, 
let her ask her husband," and it also says, " Wives, be 
obedient to jouv husbands." Spiritualism has come to 
place woman in her proper position as the companion 
and equal of man. Its first chosen instruments were 
little girls. The larger part of its mediums are women. 
What does this mean ? It not only means that the fine- 
ness of her nature makes her responsive to the touch of 
the higher powers, but it also means that she is more in 
need of a helping hand than are you, my brother man. 
The time is approaching in which the wrongs of centu- 
ries are to be righted. Women of all classes are feel- 



110 MODERN SPIRITUALISM: 

ing this. The Woman Suffrage movement, grand and 
glorious in the idea of equality that it embodies, is one 
expression of this feeling. 

It is the work of Spiritualism to place woman on a 
plane of equality with man in every respect. When 
this is done, the foundation of true marriage will be laid 
in equality and fraternity, as well as love, and future 
generations will be born with capacities and tendencies 
for true spiritual growth far beyond what is possible 
under the present condition of things. 

I want the mothers of the world uplifted. I want 
them to be free and independent citizens of the coun- 
try they inhabit, and they are going to be by and by. 
Woman is going to be permitted to vote ; she is going 
to have* a voice in the affairs of the nation; she is going 
to help to manage its business — not because she thinks 
she can do it better than her brother man, but because 
he ought not to do it alone. It is as true now as it was 
in the days of Adam, that " it is not good for man to be 
alone." Men readily comprehend this in some respects, 
but only partially. Women, looking upon this nation, 
this republic, upon the work that man has done, have 
seen that it is not good for man to be alone, and they 
say, " We are coming to help do this work ; make way 
for us." All over the earth the women are crying, 
" Give us our rightful position as equal companions and 
co-workers with man in public and in private life ; give 
us the rights to which, as mothers of the race, nature en- 
titles us." This position Spiritualism has come to give 
them; nor does its work of establishing equal rights 
cease with securing them for woman — it demands 
them for the downtrodden and oppressed of both sexes. 






ITS PLAN AND PUKPOSE. Ill 

What is the meaning of all the agitation in the world 
of labor ? It is Justice calling in thunder tones for the 
recognition of the equal rights of humanity. It is not 
woman's rights, but equal rights, that are demanded. 
To inaugurate the reign of equal rights — to extend 
the empire of Justice, Knowledge, and Truth upon earth 
— is the work of Spiritualism to-day. 



THE REALITIES OF THE SPIRIT-WORLD. 

Discourse delivered by Spirit Theodore Parker, 
at Berkeley Hall. 

I come to you as an individual spirit, wishing to 
address you as such as best I can, through one whose 
organism has not responded to me hitherto, though I 
have addressed you through other instruments. The 
world of spiritual beings or spirits is at work for man- 
kind through the development of what is known as 
Modern Spiritualism, and I wish to speak a word wher- 
ever it is possible for me to do so. I am limited, and in a 
measure withheld from exhibiting those individual char- 
acteristics that would be satisfactory to you. Still the 
principles which I shall enunciate may be accepted by 
some as the utterance of the individual. 

I am led out into the infinite realm of thought by 
your questions. In that realm I will attempt to answer 
some of them — not all. 

You ask if the individual controlling spirit knows 
anything of planetary spirits, or others outside of 
earthly spirits. 

In answering this, I shall speak very much as I have 
spoken in reference to the God-idea. I shall give you 
nothing except what I know by personal experience 
and observation. Therefore, in regard to this ques- 
tion, I must say that I am limited to my actual experi- 



THE REALITIES OF THE SPIRIT- WORLD. 113 

ence and observations in those spheres of existence into 
which I, as a spirit, have entered. In such, I have 
found, as you find here, a vast variety of thought and 
expressions of thought ; I have found a vast variety of 
intelligences who are making their way from plane to 
plane, or what you call spheres of existence, and giving 
their experiences and their thoughts. 

We find a class of spirits that pass us, as you might 
say, winging their way earthward, who, in passing 
through the spheres of existence that belong to us, 
give us their experiences. This knowledge which is 
gained by the testimony of others is not the knowl- 
edge of which I spoke in the beginning — that of 
actual personal experience. 

The world spiritual is divided and subdivided ; and 
the world material expresses also like divisions and 
subdivisions. From the lower or lesser are continu- 
ally rising emanations to the higher ; emanations from 
the higher to the lower are ever descending. Spiritual 
beings are continually ascending or descending upon 
these currents, so that in reality, as we look upon it, 
there seems to us to be but one world, and that filling 
the infinite realms of space. All these divisions are 
but chapters or parts of the same. 

If you were to analyze the atmosphere of this room, 
you would find that part near the floor very different 
from that near the ceiling, the intermediate portion 
filled with poisonous gases, passing upward and out- 
ward until it mingles again with the external air, and, 
lightened and purified, passes onward, until, at last, it 
attains to etherealized conditions, and becomes an at- 
mosphere too refined for man in his present condition 



114 THE REALITIES OF THE SPIRIT-WORLD. 

to live in. So, in the world of spirit, the spiritual at- 
mosphere becomes purer and more refined the higher 
we ascend, and spiritual beings must live in the atmos- 
phere to which they are adapted. They cannot rise 
from a lower to a higher until, by virtue of prepara- 
tion, they have acquired a fitness, an adaptation, that is 
suited to that which lies beyond. 

At death spirits enter one or another of the many 
conditions that belong to spirits who have outgrown 
the mortal. The condition they enter depends, in part, 
upon what the earthly life or career of the individual 
has been, but more upon the degree of life, in its puri- 
fication, as to the elements or properties thereof. 

Therefore we say again in as positive a manner as we 
have before, it is not belief in gods, one or many, that 
fits a man, as a spirit, to inhabit the higher spheres in 
spirit-life ; it is not belief in gods, one or many, nor is 
it any kind of what you denominate religious belief 
that prepares a man to enter into the higher spheres of 
life in the spirit-world. Therefore we say that relig- 
ious belief is not a necessary preparation for enjoyment 
and advancement in the life to come. A man may 
believe in a god with. one head, or a god with three 
heads, or he may believe in no god at all ; yet if he is 
a moral man, a good man, in reality a truly religious 
man — which is to do good — then he is fitted for the 
higher walks in life, and he lives upon a high plane 
wherever you may find him — in the world of matter 
or the world of spirit. 

Now let us look upon the realities of the spirit-world, 
for it is to those I would direct your attention to-day. 
Of these I speak as a spirit who is addressing you as 



THE REALITIES OF THE SPIRIT- WORLD. 115 

best he may through the instrumentality of this organ- 
ism. As I look upon your faces to-day I see that you 
are seekers after truth, seekers after light and wisdom, 
and that it is in pursuit of these as a principle that you 
are here to-day. 

There may be some' among you who are still holding 
to idols in reference to God and the ideas thereof ; but 
they have the knowledge that the door of the spirit- 
world is open ; that through the instrumentality of me- 
diumship, through sensitive organisms, spirits return to 
tell of what lies beyond your vision, and we say to such 
that there are many spirits who, when here, have be- 
lieved in God or in gods, have worshiped at his altars, 
have bowed before his throne, have trembled at his 
hell and shuddered at his devil, who, on entering the 
spirit-world, have found themselves unable to pass even 
through the first stratum thereof. Now what is the 
reason for this? Because they were not, in reality, 
spiritually minded. Their religion was the outgrowth 
of selfishness and fear. Such knowledge as they have 
gained, such development as they have attained, has 
not fitted them for the higher life, has not taught them 
to control matter or spirit. 

In this first stratum of the spirit-world are the great- 
est obstacles that the spirit has to encounter and over- 
come in its passage to the land beyond. What are 
these obstacles ? They consist of a world as real as this, 
filled with all manner of intelligent beings who have 
passed out of the body, but are still — unresurrected, 
shall I say ? They are still earth-bound, they are still 
held in the bondage of darkness, in superstition, in all 
they carried with them as an inheritance to the world 



116 THE REALITIES OF THE SPIIUT-WORLD. 

which lies beyond the boundary-line known as death. 
The critics of Modern Spiritualism say : " Here is the 
danger in communing with the spirit-world." They 
raise the cry of diabolism, and warn men to have noth- 
ing to do with Spiritualism, lest they should come in con- 
tact with " evil spirits." They may say that I am this 
morning admitting that all around the world is this 
class of spirits. I answer : Very well ; but stop at 
this point a moment, and know this — that progression 
awaiteth every one; so, bad as the outlook is, it is 
better than hell. 

While we, as returning spirits, tell you of the reality 
of things beyond, it behooves you, as believers who re- 
ceive this message of life, to work as though you under- 
stood it, and, understanding it, to bring your lives up 
to the level of your philosophy. 

Now, then, we say the spirit finds in the first place 
the obstacles of this condition to overcome ; many are 
able to rise above these immediately. In the sphere 
adjacent to this are those whom Nature leads trium- 
phantly above this first condition. No obstacle can 
impede their progress, because of their native purity. 
They are spirits so pure in essence and substance that 
the lower condition has no power to hold them. Use 
your electric light and the light of your gas-jets as an 
illustration. The first goes far above, and reaches far 
beyond, until it dims the light of the other. So it is 
with the light of the spirit that belongs to those who 
are children of Nature — children pure in spirit, who 
pass without the taint of earth upon them. In this 
second sphere, or belt, you will find the pure in spirit 
and yet undeveloped. Among them are your children 



THE REALITIES OF THE SPIRIT-WORLD. 117 

and your American Indians — those undeveloped, yet 
purely natural children of the earth. These already be- 
long to the first really spiritual sphere that invests your 
earth. They are able to come and go freely, by virtue 
of the purity of the elements of which they are com- 
posed. 

Those who inhabit the first stratum of which I have 
spoken are those in whose composition there is a min- 
gling of elements. They have lost the purity of the 
child, if they had received it by inheritance — though 
there are some who, by the law of generation, have not 
received it — they have lost it by false modes of life in 
the years of their earthly existence. These years may 
have been few or many, it matters not. In many in- 
stances they have been few, yet sufficient to give the 
color and the contamination of the false life which men 
are living to-day. All this is to be outlived. 

And this condition, this darkness that the spirit 
brings with it, this is hell — all the hell that is known ; 
and it is enough. Out of this hell, or these hells, men 
are lifted by these cleaner hands, these kindly souls, 
these ministering spirits, that come to you in the sim- 
plicity of children, or are children in reality. This is a 
part, but only a part, of the work of the soul on its 
passage, until it passes from the outer circles or spheres 
of our own earth, and reaches the circle in infinite space 
that belongs to worlds — not this world alone, but other 
worlds — and enters the kingdom of life, and, some 
would say, the home of God. When we look upon 
this outer, infinite circle of life understandingly, we 
must realize that our earth is only one of an innumer- 
able host of worlds, worlds that are inhabitable, or 



118 THE REALITIES OF THE SPIRIT-WORLD. 

working outward to that condition ; worlds that devel- 
oped to that condition long before this, our earth, was 
a suitable dwelling-place for man. Our world, with its 
millions of human beings, is only one of countless 
worlds that are inhabited. Therefore we must believe 
that there are spiritual beings not in the realms of 
infinite or spiritual space, who have come from these 
inhabited worlds. Now you may ask, can they and we, 
as spiritual beings, know each other? That depends 
upon our knowledge and experience. Can you talk 
with a Frenchman? Can you hold converse with a 
German? Can you talk with an Italian? Can you 
sustain a conversation with one of your native Ameri- 
cans? Not unless you speak their language, or they 
yours. 

But some will inquire, "It is not so in the spirit- 
world, is it ? " I answer, the spirit-world is made up of 
men, beings coming to it from this and other material 
worlds — and these beings are limited in a measure to 
like conditions, until they have progressed out of them. 
I believe there are spirits — I know such — who can 
hold intelligent conversation, (shall I call it conversa- 
tion ?) and understand each other, without the expres- 
sion or outer manifestation of thought called language. 
You are learning some of the primary lessons in this 
school language when you sit down and simply think, 
and the one with whom you would communicate re- 
ceives your thought. This is done, sometimes, without 
regard to space or distance. When you have experi- 
mented long enough you will understand how it is that 
an intelligence in the world of spirit can impress his 
thought upon a subject of earth. To do this requires 



THE REALITIES OF THE SPIRIT-WORLD. 119 

time, patience, and experience. Now, fancy for a single 
moment two spiritual beings who have passed centuries 
in the spirit-world, who have in reality laid aside as 
many bodies, who have died, if you so express it, as 
you have died, several times. You old men, you men 
in middle life, you have laid aside several bodies. By 
and by another death will disrobe you, not gradually, 
but seemingly all at once, of one more body, and your 
friends will say of you, " He is dead," and the earthly 
part of your present existence will be dead. But out 
of this death comes the resurrection to the higher life 
of the spirit. Out of all the deaths you have known 
have come higher conditions ; for with age comes the 
wisdom of experience. So in like manner we pass from 
one condition to another in the spirit-world; we rise 
from one sphere of existence to another, leaving behind 
the mantle or garment which has served us in the 
spheres we are leaving as your body serves you here. 
This change you may call death if it please you ; it is 
simply leaving behind that which you have outgrown, 
and for which you have no more use. 

So, having passed through one condition after an- 
other, these two spiritual beings of whom I was speak- 
ing, meet each other after their centuries of experience, 
after having passed through all these changes that have 
etherealized the body, and have arrived at that com- 
pleteness that experience brings to the soul of man. 
Do you think they need to speak with words, or that 
language, as we understand it, is needed for the ex- 
pression of their thought ? Not at all. Then out into 
this condition come at last the souls of men. So you see 
that this human life, which you sometimes call Infinite 



120 THE REALITIES OF THE SPIRIT- WORLD. 

Life or life immortal, may come from the planet earth, 
or from planets far in space. It may come from 
the planet Jupiter or the planet Mars, or from those 
for which you know no name, who are strangers to 
your system. But come it from whence it may, it is 
life, manifest life, giving expression to thought, to 
thought untrammeled by language, thought infinite, 
thought eternal, the power of which jou dimly feel to- 
day. Now you find the expression of your thought 
limited by language, just as I find myself trammeled 
and limited to-day when I speak upon this theme, 
which is infinite in its grandeur and god-like in its 
proportions. In giving expression thereto in the lim- 
itations of this hour I can only say that in this manner 
it is possible for souls to speak with souls, from what- 
ever part of the universe they may come. Then, know- 
ing and feeling how infinitely small a part of this great 
universe is this world of ours, must make man modest 
in his self-assertings ; and the more he learns of the in- 
finitude of space, of the wondrous majesty of the whole 
creation, the less liable is he to make mighty claims for 
himself Or the earth-planet which is his birth-place, and 
from which he is evolved. 

Realizing that we are but a drop in the great ocean 
of life, then do we look into every human face, and 
say, My brother, my sister ; then do we look out into 
the vastness of space, and say only this, My world, my 
universe, my Creator, my God. 

As children of the living, as children of nature, as 
children of the universe, let us no longer quarrel one 
with another. Believe God one or many, believe Jesus 
of Nazareth as the only one blessed with the sonship of 



THE REALITIES OF THE SPIRIT-WORLD. 121 

the Infinite, say of him that he is the only Son of God, 
if it satisfies you ; but looking into every human face, 
looking into the face of every Mary mother of earth, 
looking into the face of your child, looking into the 
faces of the great and good of earth, seeing there man- 
ifest the spirit of truth, and love, and wisdom, which 
are attributes of God, say you not then, with a soul full 
of love, " Are we not children of the same father ? chil- 
dren of the same parent?" 

When this truth enters the heart, it makes life broader 
and brighter ; it makes men kindly disposed one toward 
another; it brings the Kingdom of Heaven to earth. 
And he who looks upon human life to-day, seeing the 
sorrows and difficulties that beset it, hearing the dis- 
cords and inharmonies that afflict it, yet feeling the 
great heart of love and sympathy beating within him 
as he calls every man his brother — he is the true 
Christian, the true worshiper. Outside of this, where 
there is quarreling, contention, bitterness, envy, malice, 
selfishness, there is no religion, no matter what forms 
or modes of worship may be adopted. 

While it is impossible for me to take up the many 
themes that have been suggested by my hearers to-day, 
I must speak for a moment of the children and the 
question that has been presented in regard to them : I 
must speak for the children — for the children are the 
coming men and women of the world. You ask me 
why it is that there is at present and everywhere such 
a condition of inharmony and discord among those who 
are known by the name of " Young America." Before 
answering this I ask those who condemn the children 
of to-day to go back to the old tradition of Cain and 



122 THE REALITIES OF THE SPIRIT- WORLD. 

Abel ; go back six thousand years and read the story, 
as told in the Old Testament, of how the first family 
that was created became so corrupt that the first 
brother was the murderer of the second. It may seem 
to us that our children are very far out of the way, 
but we must take the position now that we always 
have — that is, that we are progressive beings, and the 
children of the present age are the best that have yet 
been created. Bad enough, they may be, but still the 
most perfected that the world has yet known. We are 
progressive beings, and so, although there is much that 
is disturbing, there is no reason for fear or discour- 
agement. 

Do not despair of your boys ; do not be discouraged. 
They may seem full of mischief to-day, may cause you 
perplexity and trouble, but by and by you may find that 
these boys so full of life and energy have grown to be 
the pride and hope of your life, that the irrepressible 
energy of their being is asserting itself in grand and 
noble ways, and they have become a power in the world. 
It is these strong natures, and not the "goody-goodies," 
who make their mark in life. This healthy activity will 
sometimes seem to work mischief in the flush of child- 
hood, as it bubbles up and runs over, but by and by the 
stream goes to work, and the strong life creates an im- 
press upon the life of the world. 

It is impossible for me to speak at length upon this 
topic, but I want to say this : Live as you should live, 
and you will have no occasion to be troubled about 
your children. If your children go to the bad, I ask 
you to look close into your own lives until you have 
found the cause thereof, going back to pre-natal condi- 






THE REALITIES OF THE SPIRIT-WORLD. 123 

tions, if need be. Men and women who live pure, true, 
spiritual lives, will, in the first place, generate spiritu- 
ally-minded children, and these children having contin- 
ually before them examples of upright living, it will be 
impossible for them to become vile and worthless. But 
if the Spiritualist is only half a one, — is a coward who 
dare not live the truth he acknowledges, — his children 
will not only be cowards like him, but may end in man- 
ifesting still more unlovely attributes. Parents cannot 
justly blame the child for being what, under inharmo- 
nious pre-natal conditions, they themselves have made 
it. We look out into the future and we see our chil- 
dren filling the places of the men and women of to-day. 
Hence we say again, let the activity of childhood and 
youth express itself. If your own lives are and have 
been what they should be, you have no cause for 
anxiety. The things that trouble you will correct 
themselves in a little time. 

I have on this occasion but taken you a little way 
out into a spiritual experience which is wide ; have car- 
ried you as far as possible for me to do into the realm 
of spirit; have tried to answer some of your questions. 
I have shown you some of the difficulties that lie in the 
way of returning spirits ; have told you that what you 
call death is only one of the changes of life, — life in- 
finite and eternal, — and through these changes, one by 
one, you will be led by helping hands, by the ministra- 
tions of those whom you call angels, but who are your 
brothers, being, like yourselves, children of the Living 
Good, called God. 



ADDRESS 

Delivered at a Meeting in Observance of the Forty-First 

Anniversary of the Advent of Modern Spiritualism, 

in Berkeley Hall, Boston, March 31, 1889. 

Throughout all Christendom, friends, the practice 
of celebrating the birth of Christ prevails, and all over 
the world a Christmas day is celebrated. Before the 
Christian era, among old-time oriental religionists, those 
who worshiped the sun, were held yearly festivals in 
spirit like the modern Christmas. These peoples, see- 
ing in a measure the wonders of the material universe, 
and especially adoring the sun, worshiped it as the 
highest expression of force and power of which they 
had any knowledge. So on through Greek and Roman 
Mythology, through long ages of symbolism and of 
mysticism, until at last we come to times comparatively 
modern, and have the Christmas of this era. 

We at this time — we Spiritualists — are stopping to 
celebrate the saving power of Truth, born among the 
sons of men. In olden times it was said : " He shall be 
called Jesus, the Christ, because he shall save the peo- 
ple from their sins." We say of truth — especially that 
form of truth given to you in Modern Spiritualism — it 
shall be called your Christ, as it shall save its people 
from their sins. Sin is the transgression of the law, 
and the violation of the law brings offence. And that 






ADDRESS. 125 

knowledge or wisdom, transmitted by the arisen angels, 
as you term them, or spirits, unto the children of earth, 
leading them upward, teaching those lessons which 
shall emancipate from the thralldom of ignorance and 
superstition, and thus saving from error, will save from 
the consequences of error. Saving from the commission 
of sin is the only true way of saving from the results of 
sin. Therefore we say to you, as friends, this morning, 
" A Merry Christmas ! " for this day is the Christmas 
of Spiritualism. It is the advent of its saving power 
that we herald to-day. It is the Anniversary of Truth, 
whose steady march is now, has been, and ever will be, 
onward and upward. Yet sometimes it seems to gain 
an impetus, to make progress so remarkable, so different 
from that which has preceded it, as to mark that time 
as a special period. The advent of Spiritualism is an 
era in the progress of truth, which with joy we are cele- 
brating this morning. It is forty-one years ago since a 
little home was made sacred by the advent of those 
manifestations and phenomena which have aroused the 
attention and awakened the inquiry of the masses of 
mankind, until our earth is shaken with the sound 
which has sped almost from pole to pole. 

In olden times it was said : " Every knee shall bow 
and every tongue proclaim His mighty name." Truth, 
though it find expression in varying forms, through 
various personalities, is ever the same. All knees do 
not yet bow, nor do we ask that they should. All 
tongues proclaim, whether they will or not. By some 
this truth is borne as a messenger of good tidings ; by 
others as a persecutor ; but even our enemies are made 
to serve the higher purpose of good. 



126 ADDRESS. 

We have not time this morning to review the whole 
history of these wonderful forty-one years ; we can only 
glance at a little of it. We are called Spiritualists. It 
is a name given to us because we talked so much of the 
spirit, of spirits. We became Spiritualists by an adher- 
ence to this one form of truth. In the old-time the- 
ology it was said that God was a triune being. He was 
God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. 
In the latter-day Christianity it seems almost as if God 
the Father were lost in the worship, adoration, and 
exaltation of the Son. We hear so much of Jesus, his 
sufferings, his mission as a mediator between God and 
man, that in this exaltation of the second person of the 
Trinity the Creator seems almost to have been lost 
sight of. 

We as Spiritualists talk not so much of God the 
spirit as of men and women the spirits — of whom we 
can speak with knowledge and understanding. We 
talk not of the trinity of the Godhead, but of the unity 
of the Godhead: of the entirety of this universe as 
parts of the great whole, full of throbbing hearts and 
pulsating lives. All men, all women, all souls are the 
children of God, and consequently spirits immortal. 

All around us — its lower chambers so near to earth 
they seem a part of it — lies the world of spirits, a 
world of beauty and light, full of energy and activity, 
inhabited by souls arisen, enfranchised of clay ; a world 
so near to this there seems almost no line of division 
between them ; yet this world was unknown until dis- 
covered, we might say, from our standpoint, incident- 
ally, almost accidentally, forty-one years ago, when was 
established the line of telegraphic communication with 



ADDRESS. 127 

this unseen realm, through the mediumship of chil- 
dren, of whom perhaps some of you say now: "The 
least said of them, the better." Our answer to that is : 
Truth is imperishable, deathless; its destroyer has 
never yet come upon the face of the earth. 

Spiritualism is born. We are here to celebrate its 
birthday. There is no enemy who can strike it a fatal 
blow. While we have knowledge which rests upon the 
eternal foundation of living truth we need fear no foe 
from without, no traitor from within. That such should 
arise is no new experience in the history of progress ; 
it has ever been so all along the pathway of life. As 
Ave know, some are more capable of honor and nobility 
than others ; they can walk more firmly among the pit- 
falls of the world ; but none are perfect, none so wholly 
fallen and degraded that they may not sometime, some- 
where, rise from their low estate and pass up higher ; 
and Spiritualism has come to lead them up. Yes, even 
its traducers and betrayers must, at last, be saved by 
the very power they now defame. 

Spiritualism came to man in answer to his need, and 
when he was in condition to have that need answered. 
Before its advent, the most important problem of human 
life was unanswered. No religious system upon earth 
at the present time affords any answer to the question : 
" If a man die, shall he live again ? " — any evidence in 
proof of its assertions as to the character and conditions 
of man after the death of the body. In the advent of 
Modern Spiritualism, that all-important question was 
answered. Before that was given, only hope, faith — 
not knowledge — was here. We are willing to concede 
to any system of faith all the good it may embody, but 



128 ADDRESS. 

we do say that the great question of man's immortality 
can be answered only by the demonstrations of Spirit- 
ualism. Except for its revelations, the land beyond the 
tomb would still have remained " the dark unknown," 
and the entrance into it still have been " the leap in 
the dark." 

Faith's taper was too dim to light the shadows of the 
grave. Heaven itself, as it was pictured, where the 
sole occupation was chanting the praise of God, was 
not a very alluring spot to poor, hungry human hearts, 
or active human brains. To enjoy the life there 
humanity would need become unlike any creation that 
has ever been known. To human hope, human love, 
human aspiration, Spiritualism came to bring its glad 
tidings ; and the proofs of its divine authority do not 
rest with one medium, one household, one family, one 
State. They have been found, they are found all over 
the world, giving evidence of its truth. And you each 
can (and do) prove it for yourself. No matter who 
says it is false, thank God your knowledge is your own, 
and none can take it from you. Almost it seems to us 
as if the spirit of Infinite Wisdom had opened the Bible 
of Truth, and not waiting for priest or church to carry 
it forth in their hands, has poured its revelation freely, 
gently as falls the evening upon the lives of humanity. 

Your minister did not tell you of it. Your Bible did 
not tell you of it. It came in no voice save the voice 
of the household Angel of Love. It whispered to your 
soul when no human being intruded upon your solitude. 

Are there any here who do not know this for them- 
selves ? who do not believe the truths we proclaim ? 
Does your faith satisfy you ? Where are your so-called 



ADDRESS. 129 

dead? You answer, " We hope for the best ; we hope 
they are in heaven, with Jesus." You hope, but you do 
not know. We have something better than that. We 
know ; we do not hope ! We do not urge you to accept 
the food we proffer you until you are hungry for it. 
We know you cannot take it until you are ready for it, 
but all about are your loved ones, walking silently and 
unseen of you ; and by and by the light will come, and 
you will realize their presence. When you entered this 
door, a spirit came with you. It may be your father, it 
may be your mother, your sister, your brother, your 
daughter, your son. They look up into your faces 
wondering if a word will be said that will open your 
understanding ; they wonder if the day will come when 
they can say : " All hail ! all hail ! for the stone has 
been rolled away from our tomb. We are not dead. 
We are not sleeping. We are with you every day and 
every hour." This is the message of Spiritualism. This 
is the message of truth. 

In the forty-one years whose close we celebrate to- 
day, there has been more advancement in the realm of 
religious thought than for centuries before. There 
have come broader conceptions of God, brighter pic- 
tures of the future life. Even in the Orthodox churches 
there has been progress toward freedom. What has 
caused this change, this growth ? You know what the 
condition of the world was when Christendom meant 
Catholicism. Protestantism was the breaking of many 
fetters, but it had the teachings of John Calvin and 
others like him. Who dared think for himself? If a 
Thomas Paine wrote, who, fifty years ago even, dared 
to read his writings? I tell you, friends, with the 



130 ADDRESS. 

advent of Modern Spiritualism, and not before, came 
freedom of thought, giving man a right to his own soul 
and conscience. 

In its forty-one years, Spiritualism has done more 
than has been done in hundreds of years before. When 
it first came it awakened much inquiry among profes- 
sional men, judges, lawyers, ministers inquiring as to 
its claims. Now there are many who do not seem to 
consider it of much account. Many ministers deny its 
divine origin, and, like Joseph Cook, say it is " Diabol- 
ism." Such a conclusion as' that could be drawn only 
by a man profoundly ignorant of its phenomena and 
philosophy, no matter how much learning he may have 
in other and less important directions. A man who 
says Spiritualism is " Diabolism " is grossly ignorant of 
what he speaks, or profoundly prejudiced — one or the 
other. 

In its forty-one years of life, Modern Spiritualism has 
numbered among its followers some of the greatest 
minds of the age — scientists, philosophers, poets, 
thinkers of all grades and conditions of life. Some 
of the best ministers have been called forth from their 
pulpits to preach this new gospel; but, best of all, it 
has come a ministering angel of peace and love into 
humble homes ; by lowly firesides it has spoken its 
words of comfort ; it has bound up the broken heart 
and given joy to the despairing. It welcomes to its 
embrace the peasant as gladly as it does the king. The 
humblest mother whose tears fall upon care-worn 
cheeks and toil-hardened hands, is as fondly cherished 
as the queen upon her throne. It has whispered to the 
little child just able to talk, and the child has looked 



ADDRESS. 131 

up in your face and told you of the spirit-friends it saw 
around, not knowing the difference between them and 
mortals. You have seen this. Could there be greater 
proof of the reality of Spiritualism ? 

The strength of Spiritualism, while it is full of power 
to convince the intellect, yet lies, to a great extent, in 
the heart of the world. You see people all around 
scorning it, refusing to investigate its claims, afraid of 
it because it is unfashionable, feeling in their hours of 
prosperity no need of it. But let trouble come; let 
death enter the home and bear away their dearest and 
best. What then ? Where do they go for consolation ? 
They may go to the church, but they will not find it 
there. The world can tell them nothing that can lift 
the weight of woe from their hearts. You see these 
sorrowing souls. In your compassion for them you 
may tell them of a place where they can hear from their 
lost ones, and some of them — not too much ashamed 
or afraid to go among those terrible Spiritualists (you 
are terrible ; you have been told so times enough) — 
will go to some medium, and their questions are an- 
swered, and before, almost, they are aware, they too, 
have become Spiritualists. And so the work goes on. 

You remember the story of Saul and the Woman of 
Endor. You know how Saul ordered the destruction 
of those who had "familiar spirits," but when he got 
into trouble at once began to look to one of those poor 
mediums to help him out. Not much different from 
people in the modern days. 

Some one said to him : " Well, you have killed nearly 
all of them, but there is one left in Endor. Let us put 
on disguises and go and consult her " ; and in this 



132 ADDRESS. 

kingly way he went into the presence of the Woman of 
Endor and said he wanted to consult with Samuel. 
Samuel — who was Samuel? He was an older medium 
that Saul knew about before ; Samuel was dead, but 
somehow it was in Saul's mind that he might help him. 
But the woman penetrated his disguise and said : " Why 
seekest thou to destroy me ? " She was a spirit medium, 
you know ; at last, yielding to Saul's importunities, she 
called, and Samuel appeared, a materialized spirit. By 
this we learn that Spiritualism is more than forty-one 
years old. This ancient Woman of Endor, this materi- 
alizing medium, came long before the days of Jesus, the 
great Nazarene medium. Jesus was surrounded by a 
band of wise spirits, who prepared conditions for his 
coming. We are told of this by the old-time writers, 
who call that preparation the "Immaculate Concep- 
tion " — a spirit coming to earth, being incarnated in 
matter. These old symbolic writers tell you what we 
spirits have so often told you, that all especially pre- 
pared to be leaders of the race in spiritual development 
are the subjects of peculiar spiritual environment even 
before their birth, which prepares the way for their 
coming. This was true of Jesus, and he grew up and 
went forth into the world, working signs and wonders. 
Are you his followers ? Show me some signs, for he 
said that his disciples should do even greater things 
than he did. 

Signs, and wonders were the accompaniment of An- 
cient, as they are of Modern, Spiritualism. We point 
to our mediums and we say : " There are our Marys, 
our Marthas, our Johns, our Pauls, our Peters. These 
have brought back your dead; or, rather, they have 



ADDRESS. 133 

brought you where you can see them. They have 
healed the sick — they have shown signs and wonders." 
Where, then, is the difference between Ancient and 
Modern Spiritualism, except in degree ? 

Now, in closing, we will briefly look over the past 
year — a year, it seems to us, full of meaning to Spirit- 
ualists. It seems as if there had been an especial effort 
on the part of the enemies of truth, in every direction, 
to injure the cause as much as possible. Such a degree 
of enmity has been brought to bear upon it that the 
influence must be felt in a measure. Some say that it 
is the denial of the Fox sisters ; some, the influence of 
Catholicism ; some say both. That an enemy has been 
at work no one will deny. Nevertheless, we know that 
this, as well as everything else, will be used to serve 
the purpose of the higher. That vessels of clay which 
once held the waters of truth have been broken by the 
wayside is sad for the vessels themselves, but we know 
that by and by even for them will be found healing 
and cleansing in the bright fountain of truth immortal. 
Sometime, somewhere, this comes to all, and no power 
of evil can change the plan of the Infinite. 

The grand old law which makes apparent evil sub- 
servient to good has done so in this case, and we see it 
even now. In no year since its advent has Modern 
Spiritualism grown as it has this year. It has grown, 
it has spread. It is taking hold upon the lives of the 
people. It is entering into their lives, making them 
grander, nobler, better. 

Our enemies have been at work in legislative halls 
seeking to pass enactments which, if they became laws, 
would close our places of worship and perhaps imprison 



134 ADDRESS. 

our mediums ; but still we feel that no persecution that 
may come can have any ultimate effect except to bring 
larger liberty to all. So, we say, whatever may be the 
temporary outcome, the permanent result will be prog- 
ress, growth, and development. 

Hearts have been made glad and lives happy by the 
power of Spiritualism in this last year. Graves have 
been open to those who were heart-broken, and the dead 
have walked forth into many homes, and have testified : 
" We are here ; we live, and we love you to-day as. much, 
yea more, than we could when we were in the mortal 
form." 

Yes, Spiritualism is spreading ; it is taking hold upon 
the thought of the people to-day. It is entering into 
the literature of the period. It is doing the work 
which I believe the highest Power above us intended 
should be done. I don't believe it was God's intention 
to make another " ism," another Church, or another 
great body of religionists, as much as it was to spiritu- 
alize those already here. 

Before another forty years have passed, the funda- 
mental principles of Spiritualism will have become so 
incorporated into the system of Christianity — or rather 
they will be so understood, they are there now — that 
people will forget they were ever anything else but 
Spiritualists. They will turn to their Bible, that you 
know is replete with Spiritualism, and say, " Here it is ! 
here it is ! Peter was a trance medium ; John was a 
seer ; James was another " ; and you can answer : " We 
told you so forty years ago ! " 

So the baby Spiritualism born in the past 
To a stalwart man has grown at last. 



ADDRESS. 135 

Forty-one years old on this natal day, 
And strong in its mighty power to sway 
The souls of men all over the earth. 
So with songs of rejoicing we hail the birth 
Of this wondrous power, and follow it down 
Till it wears on its head a victor's crown, 
A crown of rejoicing, pure and white, 
Brought from the world of eternal light ! 



ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS. 



Question. — Andrew Jackson Davis, on whom has rested 
snch a marvelous power of inspiration, who is, indeed, a 
wonderful seer of the nineteenth century, describes the 
remarkable beauty of a sunset in the spirit-land. W. J. 
Colville, one of the children of this latter-day light, himself 
one of the most marked and wonderful manifestations of 
spirit power known in this century, when asked to give a 
poem on that subject, said, "There is no sunset in the 
spirit-land." 

Answer. — You ask, in reference to the above, Which is 
correct ? We answer : Both are correct. When a lover of 
the beautiful describes to you in glowing terms the beauty 
of an earthly sunset ; when he tells you that the heavens 
glow with gold and crimson radiance, as if painted by the 
hand of a Divine Artist, you know that he tells what is 
true. When the scientist tells you that in reality the sun 
never sets, you know that he, too, speaks truth. In the 
same way we look upon what seems, at the first glance, 
two contradictory statements of the sunset in the spirit- 
land, and say they are both correct. There is a central, 
spiritual sun, governing its system of spiritual worlds, as 
much as there is a central sun around which your world 
and its kindred planets revolve. Each earthly sun and 
star and planet has its spiritual counterpart adjusted in 
relation to each other, similar to the suns, stars, and planets 
of the physical universe, and the same expressions in re- 
gard to the sunset are equally applicable to both. There- 



ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS. 137 

fore when one privileged to behold the glories of the spirit- 
land describes the wonderful beauty of the sunset, he 
describes what is seen by those to whom the beauty of that 
land is revealed. When another, equally inspired, tells 
you there is no sunset, he is stating what is a truth as 
much as if he were speaking of your material world ; each 
expressing different sides of the same truth as clearly as 
the limitations of language will permit them to do. 

Question. — Where is the seat or center of the soul ? 

Answer. — On this question there is a difference of opin- 
ion among spirits as well as mortals. Soul and body are so 
closely related, the conditions of one depend so much upon 
the conditions of the other, and the subtle thread which 
connects them is so easily broken, it is almost impossible 
for scientists on either side of life to point accurately and 
positively to the central point of their union. Some say in 
the brain. Others say otherwise. But I think it is gener- 
ally conceded by spirits who have watched the final dissolu- 
tion of the union of soul and body after death, that it is at 
the brain that the last connection is broken. If so, admit- 
ting that there is any special seat of the soul, is it not 
rational to conclude that it is at this point which holds 
with greatest tenacity to the union existing between spirit 
and matter, this point at which that union is last broken ? 
From the fact that sudden death is the result of injury to 
some parts of the body, we know that the connection 
between body and spirit is extremely subtle, and the pre- 
cise point at which it is strongest is very hard to determine. 
We may touch the heart of man, and we find in an instant 
the chord of life is severed ; but, as we have said before, 
there is a lingering of the forces at a point in the brain, 
and from this point the final separation is made. You will 
also find that as the soul is preparing to withdraw from the 
body, the loss of vital power or heat begins with the lower 



138 ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS. 

extremities, gradually passing upward, until at last, as we 
have said, it leaves the brain, and soul and body are discon- 
nected. 

Question. — What progress will man make in atmospheric 
navigation ? 

Answer. — Very little at present, but in the future we 
believe there will be inventions which will, in a great 
measure, obviate the difficulties in the way of atmospheric 
navigation which at present it is impossible to surmount. 
So we believe the time will come when the earth's atmos- 
phere will be as navigable as its oceans are to-day. Such 
progress as this is in the order of man's development; 
and to anticipate it is neither unreasonable nor visionary. 
Reviewing the progress that has been made in the last 
hundred years, it is so wonderful we can scarcely realize 
so much has been accomplished. Considering what has 
already been accomplished, we may well believe that man 
will go on acquiring ascendency over the elements that 
surround him, until at last, in the not very remote future, 
he will in reality be monarch of all he surveys. Overcom- 
ing these conditions, he will be able to overcome much that 
we to-day denominate evil, and the earth will witness a 
wonderful unfoldment of soul-life, beautiful beyond expres- 
sion, because emanating from a source that is innately 
divine and forever beautiful. 

Looking upon the universe in its wonderful beauty and 
entirety, we believe in such a source, and, knowing no bet- 
ter name for it, we call it God. Where there is so much 
manifest wisdom, so much manifest intelligence, so much 
that is divine, there must be a central source of this divine 
power, call it by whatsoever name you will — it matters 
not. We are not to conclude that it is a being like our- 
selves; but as we infer there is a central source of life 
because life is, so we infer there is a central source of mind 






ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS. 139 

because mind is, and we call it Infinite Mind, the great 
source of life and power, the God of the universe. 

Question. — To whom should we pray ? 

Answer. — Why, pray to those you need to assist you, 
every time. In an invocation some may wonder to whom 
we address our prayers — if it is to some unknown being 
that we pray. No ; we pray to those whom we do know, 
intelligences higher than ourselves, yet whom we know are 
near. We surround our medium, bringing her all the light 
we may, looking for guidance and assistance from spirits 
higher and wiser than ourselves. And it is well for man 
to look to something higher than himself. If you ask a 
question for more information, more light, you are praying 
for more light ; and that that prayer may be answered, you 
should address a power high enough in intelligence to give 
answer to that prayer; otherwise your prayer will return 
to you unanswered, as do many prayers to-day — unan- 
swered and useless. How many people to-day are asking 
God to do something for them that he meant they should 
do for themselves. Neither God nor angels will do your 
work for you; but, doing the best you can to work out 
your own salvation, it is right for you to look for aid and 
direction to spiritual beings higher than yourself, spirits of 
just men made perfect, angels who are messengers of " the 
Most High " ; these are commissioned to aid and strengthen 
you, and in communing with them something of the light 
and power of their lives will flow into your own. 

We look upon the way in which men often pray, and 
really, if it were not so sad it would be amusing. Man 
goes to work and tells God all that is going on, and asks 
him to mend matters. At the same time he will tell you 
that he believes God knows everything, and in infinite 
wisdom doeth all things well. 

If God is infinite in Avisdom, goodness, and power, then 



140 ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS. 

the evils that now exist will be removed in his own time, 
which will be the right time. In the meantime it is onr 
duty and our privilege to go onward and upward, uplifting 
our own souls as far as it is possible for us to do, by and 
through the power of love, will, intelligence, and aspiration, 
and then, when we can do no more for ourselves, we have 
a right to ask aid of those about us who are higher and 
stronger than ourselves ; for in this way, by these means, 
does God answer prayer. I believe such prayer as this 
never goes forth in vain. We may not always feel the re- 
sponse at once, but it will surely come to our weary, aspir- 
ing souls, as gently and imperceptibly, it may be, as the 
dew from heaven, but bringing with it the quickening power 
of the life immortal. 

Question. — Why don't Jesus come and speak to us ? 

Answer. — We think of those who to-day are addressing 
"the throne of grace," as they call it, in his name, and 
then of "the man of Galilee," who walked the earth as you 
are walking it to-day, a, man far in advance of his age, Son 
of God indeed, by virtue of the light that was in him, but 
a man of our human race who, while doing all the good 
he could, yet had the limitations of our common humanity 
upon him, and therefore he did not heal all the sick; he 
did not lift the heavy burden from all weary souls ; he did 
not enter all humble homes. He tasted the bitterness of 
human life ; at times he also tasted its sweetness. He felt 
for his brother-man as not all his followers have been able 
to do, and in the history of his life, his death, and his teach- 
ings there are expressions of eternal fundamental truths, 
which, perverted and misunderstood as they have been, are, 
in the spiritual light of this nineteenth century, coming to 
be understood as they have never been before. As man 
becomes spiritualized, he finds in all truth its saving 
power, which develops within his soul as fast as its divine 



ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS. 141 

principles spring up therein, and cause it to unfold in 
beauty. 

As the life of Jesus expressed and illustrated the power 
of truth, so his death was the necessary consummation of 
his life, inasmuch as only by some terrible act like that of 
the crucifixion, would that life have been made prominent 
enough to be seen down the centuries. Now Jesus was 
not alone in this. In all ages men have suffered and died 
for truth, and by such sufferings, such deaths, has the prog- 
ress of truth been advanced. This brings me to the 
thought I would like to express in answer to the inquiry 
made in regard to recent agitations and disturbances, dis- 
closures, and discussions in regard to " materializing medi- 
ums," stances, etc. 

As a spirit, I know that personation, transfiguration, 
materialization, are all true; they are facts that show the 
glorious triumph of mind over matter, of soul over what 
is called substance. When these manifestations are rudely 
interrupted, when their necessary conditions are abruptly 
broken by any one, — Spiritualists or not, — the result can- 
not fail to be most disastrous to the medium, in some cases 
imperiling life itself, if not destroying it. In all cases 
where this class of phenomena is occurring, whether it be 
personation, transfiguration or materialization, any inter- 
ruption will always entail great sufferings upon the 
medium, from the fact that so many of the elements of the 
physical organism are lent, as it were, to the manifesting 
spirit, and can be properly returned only under proper 
conditions. Here, then, is a test of genuine mediumship, 
in which the condition of the sufferer bears witness to the 
truth of the manifestations. 

When such cases occur, as they have occurred, the very 
martyrdom of mediums promotes the cause of truth; and 
every true medium is willing to be sacrificed, if need be, on 



142 ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS. 

the altar of truth. So we say, the cause of Spiritualism 
has nothing to fear from any intrusions into seance-rooms 
or any rude handling of cabinets, and no true medium who 
possesses one particle of " materializing power," as it is 
called, should hesitate to exercise that power, the smallest 
atom of which is enough to confound the wisdom of the 
wisest, when it is true and genuine. It is only the pre- 
tenders who need fear — they who find it necessary to 
carry into their cabinets masks and wigs and all the 
masquerading paraphernalia which it has made our souls 
sick to see, but which, if it is to be found in places that 
should be so sacred, we are glad to have brought forth to 
the light of day. 

We want nothing false under the standard of our army 
of progress. Spiritualism has given to the world the divin- 
est truth of the ages. It is a quenchless torch to light the 
world, before whose glorious rays even the dark shadows of 
the valley of death are dispelled. Do you think little agi- 
tations or disturbances are going to stay its all-conquering 
progress ? Not so ; out of these very trials will come the 
uplifting of the truth. And to those true and honest me- 
diums who suffer through the ignorance or mistakes of 
others, compensation will be given sooner or later. Even 
their sufferings, as I have shown, prove the genuineness of 
their work ; and as, in olden times, the blood of the mar- 
tyrs was the seed of the Church, so in these latter days, 
through suffering if need be, shall the truth be uplifted 
and diffused. 

We find, then, that from the first days of Modern Spirit- 
ualism to the present time, true mediumship has been able 
to endure every test to which it has been subjected. In all 
its varied forms, in all phases of its manifestation, from 
table-tipping to full-form materialization ; from the inspired 
utterances of the child to the veteran lecturer upon your 



ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS. 143 

platforms ; in every way, in every manner in which this 
great light has been revealed, it has shone triumphant over 
all conditions; it has gone forth to battle with darkness 
and error, and everywhere it has been victorious ; and it 
will go on, shining into earth's dark places, lighting up the 
homes of men with its divine radiance, until at last the 
whole glad earth shall rejoice in the light of the new day. 



